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The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

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Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#81

Post by dr_dshiv »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #76
dr_dshiv wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but she feels sick in the car. Then we give her a pill. There is nothing dangerous in homeopathy, that’s the dilution effect. Another thread trending on the value of placebo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28887705

>There is nothing dangerous in homeopathy Some of the pills are made using toxic fillers. It's not enough I'd panic over, you can get the placebo effect without ingesting anything shady/expensive.

Do you have a source for homeopathy being made from toxic filers?

I’d hypothesize that the more expensive the pill, the better the effect.

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#82

Post by tomjakubowski »

thinkloop wrote: post #70
prvc wrote: post #18

>Though today Benjy and most of the Fugate family descendants have lost their blue coloring, the tint still comes out in their skin when they are cold or flush with anger. I wish they had included at least one photograph of this.

https://s.abcnews.com/images/Health/abc_blue_man_thg_130925_...

That's argyria from taking colloidal silver.

Methemoglobinemia looks far less severe: https://blogs.brown.edu/emergency-medicine-residency/citw-14...

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#83

Post by boomboomsubban »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #81
boomboomsubban wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is nothing dangerous in homeopathy Some of the pills are made using toxic fillers. It's not enough I'd panic over, you can get the placebo effect without ingesting anything shady/expensive.

Do you have a source for homeopathy being made from toxic filers? I’d hypothesize that the more expensive the pill, the better the effect.

I can't find specifics about homeopathic fillers, but any pill not regulated by the FDA is likely to use cheap fillers that are often toxic. Vitamins are where you commonly hear about this, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_food_and_dietary...

I did find this, https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/10/fda-homeopathic-teet... which shows there is some risk, though again you're most likely fine.

>I’d hypothesize that the more expensive the pill, the better the effect.

For you, sure. For your daughter, I bet your confident recommendation is the most important aspect.

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#84

Post by silisili »

diggan wrote: post #51
silisili wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to college in Kentucky with two of the Fugates, twins in fact. Sorry to report, neither were blue in color.

Makes sense, seems like in the 1960s they came up with a solution for removing the blue color, so most likely if they have the recessive gene, they are taking those pills. > Using research collected from studies of isolated Alaskan Eskimo populations, Cawein was able to conclude that the Fugates carried a rare hereditary blood disorder that causes excessive levels of methemoglobin in their blood. > Cawein devised a c…

Very well could be. I'd never heard of it at the time I knew them, so didn't know to look or even ask.

I can't confirm they are direct lineage or anything, though. I only know they were Fugate from eastern KY. It's not a particularly common name, nor is eastern KY particularly well populated so figure they are related in some manner.

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#85

Post by _spduchamp »

et2o wrote: post #4
dougmwne wrote: post #2

The discovery of the treatment in the methylene blue dye is quite fascinating. How exactly did someone figure that out for such a rare condition? And imagine being deep blue all your life and everyone knowing you as blue, then you take this blue pill and bam, you're pink as can be. Must have seemed like practical magic.

Methylene blue has a fascinating history in medicine. It was already well known as a treatment for methemoglobinemia however. It's a ready electron acceptor. It's used for a few other conditions today, without a lot of evidence.

Yves Klein used Methylene blue in the drinks at one of his shows to great effect... https://socks-studio.com/2019/11/23/iris-clert-yves-klein-th...

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#86

Post by msrenee »

imglorp wrote: post #79
Bayart wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people had been quite literally blue, it would have been widely written about. You're talking about an era giving people nicknames based on their countenance and using any slight deformity for propaganda was quite common.

True. Or maybe they covered it up with cosmetics, another stereotype of aristocrats?

No.

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#87

Post by [deleted] »

diggan wrote: post #51
silisili wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to college in Kentucky with two of the Fugates, twins in fact. Sorry to report, neither were blue in color.

Makes sense, seems like in the 1960s they came up with a solution for removing the blue color, so most likely if they have the recessive gene, they are taking those pills. > Using research collected from studies of isolated Alaskan Eskimo populations, Cawein was able to conclude that the Fugates carried a rare hereditary blood disorder that causes excessive levels of methemoglobin in their blood. > Cawein devised a c…

[deleted]

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#88

Post by sumedh »

Bayart wrote: post #74
imglorp wrote: post #23

Maybe the old term for European aristocrat, blue blood, along with its inbreeding connotations, is more literal than history gives it credence. It's usually attributed to pale skin but perhaps methemoglobinemia was on display. https://www.historyextra.com/period/georgian/why-people-nobl...

If people had been quite literally blue, it would have been widely written about. You're talking about an era giving people nicknames based on their countenance and using any slight deformity for propaganda was quite common.

> If people had been quite literally blue, it would have been widely written about.

Some of the Hindu gods have blue skin, maybe they just had Methemoglobinemia.

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#89

Post by abandonliberty »

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

This article touches on something that remains very true today: if you want to study genetic disorders you look at closely-related populations. If the condition you want to study is linked to a recessive gene, you want to find (or create) an isolated population with that gene. In animals/plants this is why inbreeding can serve a useful function. If you want to detect a recessive gene, but either don't have access to…

Inbreeding gets a bad reputation in humans because we have poor genetic diversity and endless recessive diseases due to going through at least two near-extinction events (population bottlenecks) that took us down to 2000 and 55000 humans. https://gizmodo.com/extinction-events-that-almost-wiped-out-...

Many animals can inbreed with much less downside.

There are lab mice that are entirely homozygous (inbred until every gene they have is identical). They're not quite as prolific as normal mice, but they survive.

Re: The Fugate family of Kentucky has had blue skin for centuries (2017)

#90

Post by halgir »

sandworm101 wrote: post #36

This article touches on something that remains very true today: if you want to study genetic disorders you look at closely-related populations. If the condition you want to study is linked to a recessive gene, you want to find (or create) an isolated population with that gene. In animals/plants this is why inbreeding can serve a useful function. If you want to detect a recessive gene, but either don't have access to…

My country of origin, Faroe Islands, has worked on this precisely because the population is small and very closely related. So there's a lot of recessive genes being expressed. Also, they've kept meticulous population records for centuries, so traits can be accurately traced back through several generations. I just looked up my own records in the national registry and traced one of my branches back to a named person born in the year 1170.

Info: https://www.fargen.fo/en/research/genealogy-registry/

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