What could be more important than keeping your heart and blood vessels healthy? You already know that you need to control your blood pressure to reduce the strain on your heart and blood vessels. One gaseous component in your bloodstream that helps you do this is nitric oxide. People who have cardiovascular disease or hypertension often have low levels of nitric oxide. Such deficiency leads to “endothelial dysfunction,” or unhealthy blood vessel function, a major contributor to cardiovascular disease. But first, you need to know what nitric oxide is.
What Is Nitric Oxide?
Nitric oxide is a gaseous molecule that has various functions as a signaling molecule that tells your heart and blood vessels how to react on a minute-by-minute basis. The thin, but active, lining of your arterial walls produces nitric oxide through a pathway that involves L-arginine and L-citrulline. Three American scientists discovered it in 1998 and won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for describing it. Although it doesn’t hang around long once it forms, only a few seconds, it plays a key role in cardiovascular health.
Why Nitric Oxide Is Beneficial for Heart Health
Nitric oxide is a vasodilator, a gaseous compound that opens blood vessels, so they accept more blood flow. Due to its ability to dilate blood vessels, it reduces the amount of force on the walls of arteries, so your blood pressure drops. Nitric oxide also scales back inflammation inside the walls of your arteries, so they sustain less damage and plaque build-up. Another bonus: Nitric oxide makes platelets less “sticky,” further lowering the risk of blood clots.
How Your Body Produces Nitric Oxide
Although you can get nitric oxide indirectly from food sources, your body can also produce it on its own. It does this through two pathways:
NOS-dependent Pathway:
This is the main way your body makes nitric oxide, and it does with the help of enzymes called nitric oxide synthases. Three types of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) enzymes take part in this synthesis.
- Endothelial NOS (eNOS): Located in the inner walls of arteries.
- Neuronal NOS (nNOS): Found in nerve cells.
- Inducible NOS (iNOS): Made in response to inflammatory stimuli.
NOS-independent Pathway:
Another way of producing nitric oxide is to convert nitrates to nitrites (from dietary sources) to nitric oxide.
Nitric Oxide and Exercise
No matter which pathway nitric oxide comes from it has a similar function. It causes the smooth muscle around blood vessels to dilate. This widening lowers your blood pressure and your risk of developing blood clots. But there’s more. Nitric oxide helps with exercise performance too. By widening blood vessels, your hard-working muscles get more oxygen and nutrients to make ATP, the energy currency that fuels exercise. By doing this, nitric oxide improves exercise endurance.
How to Boost Nitric Oxide Production for Heart Health
First, know that nitric oxide production goes down with age. Also, if you have diabetes or hypertension, these conditions damage your inner arterial wall and reduce the amount of nitric oxide your blood vessels produce. Still, there are ways to boost nitric oxide production. These include:
Aerobic Exercise: There’s more than one reason to boost your heart rate through exercise. Research shows it increases nitric oxide production.
Diet: Nitrate-rich foods boost nitric oxide production through the NOS-independent pathway. Beetroot and beetroot juice and leafy greens are an abundant source of natural nitrates that enhance nitric oxide. Other foods high in natural nitrates that produce nitric oxide include:
- Leafy greens:
- Spinach
- Kale
- Romaine lettuce
- Arugula
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
Root vegetables:
- Beets
- Carrots
- Celery
- Radishes
- Citrus fruits:
- Oranges
- Lemons
- Limes
- Grapefruit
Other fruits and vegetables:
- Pomegranate
- Watermelon
- Fennel
- Endive
- Leek
- Parsley
- Pumpkin
Nuts and seeds:
- Almonds
- Walnuts
- Pumpkin seeds
- Sunflower seeds
Supplements: Some supplements, such as L-arginine, L-citrulline, and beetroot extract, boost NO levels. However, the benefits vary from person to person. Avoid taking these supplements without consulting your doctor first.
Antioxidants: Consuming antioxidant-rich foods or supplements may help protect NO from oxidative degradation. This means your NO level stays higher for longer.
Medications: Some cardiovascular medications, such as ACE inhibitors and statins, may indirectly enhance NO production or activity. This may partially explain why they lower blood pressure.
The best way for the average person to get the benefits of nitric oxide is to consume more foods that boost their production. By eating more of the foods in the list above, you’ll naturally boost the amount of nitric oxide your blood vessels produce. Plus, these foods are naturally high in antioxidants to promote healthy cells.
Conclusion
So now you know what nitric oxide is and how it plays a key role in heart and blood vessel health. It reduces inflammation, lowers the risk of blood clots and helps reduce blood pressure naturally. You can take a proactive approach to your heart health by supporting the ability of your own blood vessels to make nitric oxide. Do it by adopting a healthy diet, including natural, nitrate-rich foods in your diet, like leafy greens, and by doing aerobic exercise.
As research continues to uncover the benefits of nitric oxide, this tiny molecule holds significant potential for improving overall health and well-being. With cardiovascular disease being so common, it’s a smart approach to maximizing your lifespan and health span.
References:
- Li, Yuan, Ashok K Srivastava, and Madhu B Anand-Srivastava. 2023. “Nitric Oxide and Cardiovascular Health.” Advances in Biochemistry in Health and Disease, January, 15–39. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24778-1_2.
- Van, Gavin. 2018. “5 Ways Nitric Oxide Supplements Boost Your Health and Performance.” Healthline. Healthline Media. March 25, 2018. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nitric-oxide-supplements.
- “Nurturing Nitric Oxide: The Heart-Healthy Chemical in Your Blood Vessels – Cleveland HeartLab, Inc.” 2017. Cleveland HeartLab, Inc. April 11, 2017. https://www.clevelandheartlab.com/blog/nurturing-nitric-oxide-heart-healthy-chemical-blood-vessels/.
- Raddino R, Caretta G, Teli M, Bonadei I, Robba D, Zanini G, Madureri A, Nodari S, Dei Cas L. Nitric oxide, and cardiovascular risk factors. Heart Int. 2007;3(1):18. doi: 10.4081/hi.2007.18. Epub 2007 Jun 15. PMID: 21977271; PMCID: PMC3184682.
- Kiani AK, Bonetti G, Medori MC, Caruso P, Manganotti P, Fioretti F, Nodari S, Connelly ST, Bertelli M. Dietary supplements for improving nitric-oxide synthesis. J Prev Med Hyg. 2022 Oct 17;63(2 Suppl 3):E239-E245. doi: 10.15167/2421-4248/jpmh2022.63.2S3.2766. PMID: 36479475; PMCID: PMC9710401.
- Andrabi SM, Sharma NS, Karan A, Shahriar SMS, Cordon B, Ma B, Xie J. Nitric Oxide: Physiological Functions, Delivery, and Biomedical Applications. Adv Sci (Weinh). 2023 Oct;10(30):e2303259. doi: 10.1002/advs.202303259. Epub 2023 Aug 26. PMID: 37632708; PMCID: PMC10602574.
- “Nitric oxide and the brain. Part 1: Mechanisms of regulation … – Nature.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-020-1017-0.
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