The Benefits of Nitric Oxide

Your Body's Nitric Oxide Could Save Your Life

by Doug Evans, Osteopath at Hopewood Heath Retreat

Nitric oxide is a molecule naturally found in the body and produced by cells that line your blood vessels and heart.  Its main function is acting as a vessel to convey information between cells.  It plays a major role in keeping blood flowing through the body and keeps it going to vital areas such as the brain.

Essentially nitric oxide works by lubricating the veins and arteries in your body.  It makes the inner surface of blood vessels smooth and slippery helping them to move through the body with ease. 

An added benefit of the ‘slipperiness’ of cells with healthy levels of nitric oxide is they are much less likely to clot together. This also reduces friction and speeds up blood flow.  Good blood flow is vital to good health—if your heart can’t get fresh blood to all areas of your body, that’s very bad news!

Nitric oxide is also proven to help increase blood flow by dilating the blood vessels.  It is often given to heart patients for this reason.  As with vitamins, it is better to get nitric oxide naturally from a healthy diet.

It’s all well and good knowing about the importance of nitric oxide but how do we enrich our body’s natural levels?  There are a number of simple changes you can make to your diet which will ‘turn on’ the production of nitric oxide in your body.

• Eating more arginine rich foods such as legumes. All plant foods will boost nitric oxide production but legumes are especially useful.
• Do more aerobic activity.  This has the added bonus of helping your heart by stimulating nitric oxide production and also strengthens your heart muscles.
• Ensure you are eating a rich antioxidant diet daily.  You can get these from fresh plant foods.
• Eat a diet which is low in fat and animal proteins.

Just as there are simple ways to turn the production of nitric oxide on, there are also simple things you may be doing which hinder production.  To prevent your body slowing production of nitric oxide, it is important to avoid

• Most fats and oils.  Eliminate these from your diet wherever possible.
• Insulin resistance from poor diet and sedentary activity.
• Smoking.  We probably don’t need to explain how bad this is for your heart! 

You can see from the things to avoid list, these are some of the highest causes of cardiovascular attacks known.  Stimulating nitric oxide production helps give your body extra protection from a heart attack.  Nitric oxide is your body’s way of ‘heart attack proofing’ itself!