The Molecule for Better Blood Flow and Longevity

This loss of nitric oxide production is really the earliest event in the onset progression of chronic disease. So because if you have vascular dysfunction in the blood vessels of the sex organs, then it's not just isolated to your sex organs. It's a systemic disease. You've got that same dysfunction in the blood vessels of your heart, the brain, the kidneys, the lungs, the liver. It's systemic disease that manifest in the sex organs. Dr. Nathan, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. Great to be with you. Yeah, I'm very happy to have you on my podcast. Uh when I was researching like about nitric oxide and you were one of the main um authors and researchers that came up. So I'm really excited to have you on the show and talk about nitric oxide which is this kind of fascinating molecule. Maybe we can you know start with you giving like a short overview of um you know what is nitric oxide and why should people care in the first place. Yeah, know it's a good question and again thanks thanks for your interest and thanks for for having me on. I think it's critically important that your audience understand what this molecule is. But you know it's a gas that's naturally produced. It's produced in most cells in the human body. It's a signaling molecule. Uh but it's responsible for things like vasoddilation, dilating the blood vessels, improving circulation, blood flow. It's responsible for the delivery of oxygen by hemoglobin. uh it mobilizes stem cells. So we have with nitric oxide we have an increased number of sim stem cells in circulation so we can repair from uh recover from injury repair and replace dysfunctional cells. It activates our mitochondria so we can better deliver better produce cellular energy ATP uh more efficiently uh and it prevents the telomeres the ends of our chromosomes from getting shorter. So it's really what we call a longevity longevity molecule. Everything we know about living long healthy lives can be attributed to adequate nitric oxide production. And to the contrary, if you lose the ability to produce nitric oxide, then it leads to the rapid onset of chronic disease um and poor quality of life. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's u you know linked to a lot of these chronic diseases like heart disease and uh neurodeeneration, kidney disease as well and hypertension. So yeah, it's like uh in the modern world we're kind of um clearly something is wrong in the sense that a lot of people are you know getting more sick and uh the lifestyle doesn't really support I guess like adequate nitric oxide production and you know with age you also see like a decline in the blood circulation and and other like things that decrease nitric oxide production. Yeah, we we understand kind of how the human body makes nitric oxide. We certainly understand today what lifestyle and really it's the western diet, the western lifestyle, drug therapy, oral hygienic practices really there are many things that that lead to a rapid loss or decline of nitric oxide production. As you said, this this loss of nitric oxide production is really the earliest event in the onset progression of chronic disease. So, you know, it's really hard to change people's habits. Uh you it's one of the most difficult things to do is change someone's habits. uh so compliance is an issue but I think as we understand the science of nitric oxide more and understand what leads to a loss of its production and then really communicate you know whether it's diabetes or Alzheimer's or heart disease or erectile dysfunction those are the things that occur as a result of the loss of the ability to produce nitric oxide see and then people are motivated by fear and I think we have to really I don't want to be fear-mongering but you have to understand that you know Alzheimer's for example is one of the feared conditions uh in the world. And it's clear that if you lose the ability to produce nitric oxide, you're eventually going to get Alzheimer's. So, we have to communicate this this new and fascinating science around nitric oxide so we can empower people to take control of their own health, stop doing the things that disrupt nitric oxide production, and start doing the things that promote it and live a longer healthier life. And that's really our mission. Yeah. So with a inadequate nitric oxide production you'll have the first thing that you mentioned would be like a decline in this vaso dilation. So your arteries become more stiffer and there's less blood flow and uh more plaque accumulation in the arteries and and uh yeah just like worse I guess supply of nutrients to different regions of the of the of the body because of that than like hypertension. So the vasa constriction increases the blood pressure in the in the in the blood vessels as well. No, that's exactly right. And and blood pressure is a physics problem. Right. Right. So we have a finite amount of blood pumping, you know, each second throughout our entire body. And if we make adequate nitric oxide, then we've got soft compliant vessels and we've got, you know, dilation. So we're pumping that blood through bigger pipes and so pressure decreases. If we lose the ability to make nitric oxide, the blood vessels become stiff. They become constricted. Now, we've got that same volume of blood going through smaller vessels and physics tells us that pressure has to go up. Um, and so, yeah, that's a main contributor to a loss of nitric oxide is you see an increase in blood pressure. And at least in America, two out of three Americans have an unsafe elevation in blood pressure. And then you know even before that even before you start to see an increase in blood pressure you start to see erectile dysfunction because if you can't dilate the blood vessels of the sex organs when you're stimulated or when you want to have intercourse uh then you you don't get engorgment and men don't get erections women don't get erections and women become an orgasmic and it's a symptom of nitric oxide deficiency. So we understand all the mechanisms and what leads to erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, diabetes, Alzheimer's, exercise intolerance, cardiovascular disease, and it can all be traced back to a loss of nitric oxide production. Yeah. Like erectile dysfunction is is is like very downstream from cardiovascular disease like uh this uh arterial stiffness and plaque buildup in in the arteries. So yeah like it's a very very kind of interesting connection between between uh this these two kind of systems in the body and correct me if I'm wrong but then like the first uh erectile dysfunction drugs you know Viagra and uh other PD5 inhibitors they partly work through increasing nitric oxide if I'm not mistaken. Now they don't have any effect on nitric oxide production per se. Right? So how this works is when the when the lining of the blood vessel which are the endothelial cells when they produce nitric oxide so all blood vessels are surrounded by a layer of smooth muscle. So the nitric oxide diffuses into that smooth muscle and then it activates an enzyme called guanocycase. And this is pretty intense biochemistry. But the the the second messenger cyclic GMP is what leads to vasoddilation. So nitric oxide increases cyclic GMP which leads to vasoddilation and then the PD5 inhibitors prevent the breakdown of cyclic GMP. Right? So they prolong and potentiate the effects of nitric oxide. So nitric oxide turns the switch on and the Viagraas and the seialysis of the world leave it on because it prevents the breakdown of the second messenger. And that's why if you read on the package insert, you're warned against 4-hour erections, an unsafe drop in blood pressure, the blue vision, the changes in um in eyesight, and the list of of side effects that come along with those drug therapies. But no, it doesn't. It's not a nitric oxide producer. In fact, we know that 50% of the men that are prescribed Viagra don't respond with better erections. M and the reason there's people that are nonresponsive to PD5 inhibition therapy is because they're not making enough nitric oxide in the lining of the blood vessel to activate that second messenger system. So this told us 20 years ago that erectile dysfunction is a symptom of nitric oxide deficiency and the PD5 inhibitors can potentiate that but they don't fix the underlying root cause. So if we can enhance nitric oxide production at the level of endothelium, we can take nonresponders to Viagra and make them responsive. But I think more importantly, you can titrate down the dose of those drugs because we're amplifying the signal and we're getting to the root cause of the problem of erectile dysfunction. And so, but the bigger picture is, you know, we call this the canary and the coal mine because if you have vascular dysfunction in the blood vessels of the sex organs, then it's not just isolated to your sex organs. It's a systemic disease. You've got that same dysfunction in the blood vessels of your heart, the brain, the kidneys, the lungs, the liver. It's systemic disease that manifest in the sex organs. So we have to look at erectile dysfunction as the canary in the coal mine and an early loss of nitric oxide production that has to be corrected and if not you know we know that people with ED have higher rates of uh heart attack stroke high blood pressure cardiovascular disease in fact all cause mortality so we have to fix this underlying issue it's not just a lifestyle issue it's a serious medical condition that has to be corrected H yeah. Yeah. Like I think yeah got confused that they first discovered that these drugs are or they tried to make them blood pressure medications but they saw that yeah they're more effective for erectile dysfunction. That was like the history. Yeah. The first indication for these from Fizer years ago was from pulmonary hypertension right to kind of dilate the arterials of the um the lungs to improve ventilation and profusion. uh but they found that you know obviously one of the side effects that most men reported was you know prolonged erections or an improvement in rectile function. So obviously they abandoned the pulmonary hypertension indication with ED and it's and it's been very successful therapy and you know but more importantly I think is that there's data now showing that people who have been on PD5 in addition therapy whether it's Viagra or once the low doialis have lower incidence of Alzheimer's. Yeah. because it's dilating blood vessels, improving profusion, and mitigating inflammation. So, there's enormous clinical benefit for being able to dilate blood vessels and improve oxygen delivery and circulation. You know, P5 inhibitors are just one way to do it. But again, it's downstream of nitric oxide. I think we need to look more upstream and fix the the underlying problem, which is loss of nitric oxide. Yeah. Viagra use is associated even like less heart disease and less mortality among older men. But yeah, like you said, it's because of this visualation and the better blood flow. So you can probably achieve some similar effects with uh you know other other main means of increasing nitric oxides as well. This episode is brought to you by Bone Charge, my favorite company for blue blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, and red light light bulbs. These items are essential for keeping your sleepw cycles aligned in a world that tries to mess them up. Instead of looking at your phone before bed and letting the blue light disrupt your melatonin production, why not wear blue blockers instead that prevent that from happening? Instead of having your bedroom lit up with bright lights, use the more sleep friendly alternative by opting for flicker-free red light bulbs that don't disrupt your sleep. Bone charge also has amazing infrared sauna blankets that can give you the same health benefits as the traditional sauna. You also get the unique benefits of infrared light that improves joint and skin health. Head over to buntcharge.com/seamund and use the code seam s iim for a 15% discount. How does your body make nitric oxide and like supplementally or dietarily uh to increase it? Yeah. So that's the first question is before we can start to even think about developing rational therapies or product technology. Number one, you have to be able to recapitulate physiology, right? We have to understand how does the human body normally make nitric oxide and then what goes wrong and why do they lose the ability to make it on their own. So today we understand there's two primary pathways to produce nitric oxide. The one we've talked about, it's an enzyme in the lining of the blood vessel. It's called nitric oxide synthes. This enzyme when it's functional takes larginine which is a semi- essential amino acid produced through the ura cycle and converts that to nitric oxide gas is a very complex biochemical reaction and and we look at this in terms of endothelial function. So if you have good inthelial function that means the enzyme that makes nitric oxide is functional and dilates blood vessels when it's stimulated or activated and so but we know through population based studies that the function of this enzyme gets worse with age. In fact we lose about 10 to 12% of the function of that enzyme per decade. So most people by the time they're 40 years old only have about 50% of the nitric oxide they had when they were you know in their teens or 20s. uh but now we know that that doesn't have to be the case. So we can prevent this age- related decline in nitric oxide production and for instance take a 50 60 70 year old and make them have a biological age or the nitric oxide production of a you know 20 or 30 year old and we know that there we can accelerate this as well because we're seeing 20 25 year old kids and young people that have the nitric oxide production of a 70 or 80 year old because of their diet their lifestyle and some genetic predispositions. So that's number one. And it's the enzyatic production of nitric oxide through nitric oxide synthes. The other one we know we get from our diet and this involves certain oral bacteria and this also is dependent upon adequate stomach acid production. So the foods we eat we primarily get nitrate from green leafy vegetables and then this nitrate has to be metabolized by oral bacteria. So 90 minutes after we consume a vegetable, call it spinach, ale, arugula, beets for example, then 90 minutes after we consume that, if it has sufficient nitrate, that nitrate is taken up in the gut, concentrated in our salivary glands, and now we're secretreting nitrate from our saliva, and that's feeding these nitrate reducing bacteria on the dorsal part of the tongue. And these bacteria respire on nitrate and they reduce it or metabolize it into inorganic nitrite. So now the saliva is enriched in nitrite and when we swallow our own saliva if there's stomach acid being produced we produce nitric oxide gas in the lumen of the stomach. So we can produce it in the lining of the blood vessels. We can produce it in the lumen of the acid stomach and that leads to regulation of systemic blood pressure. in the in the stomach. It it's inhibiting u you know gastric ulcerations from chronic insect use. It kills food born bacteria such as H pylori the acidcausing bacteria eoli claustrdium salmonella. Um but again this is dependent upon a lot of things. Do we get enough nitrate from the diet? Does each individual have the right oral nitrate reducing bacterium? And then are we having sufficient stomach acid production? And if you look at societies today, at least in the US, the US diet doesn't contain enough nitrate. There's 200 million prescriptions written for ant acids every year, the proton pump inhibitors. Twothirds of Americans use over-the-counter ant acids. And then two out of three Americans use mouthwash every day, killing the oral microbiome. And then fluoride is a problem. You know, there's fluoride in many toothpaste, most toothpaste. And fluoride is an antiseptic that kills the oral bacteria. So we're completely shutting down 50% of the body's ability to produce nitric oxide by diet, lifestyle, ant acids, and fluoride, toothpaste, and antiseptic mouthwash. So those are the big things that we're doing that most people are doing that they don't even realize the consequences of. And you know, we've published and others have published that if you use mouthwash and kill the bacteria, your blood pressure goes up. M if you use mouthwash you lose the protective benefits of exercise. I mean that's that's huge. So and I'm not so so my point is I'm not asking people to to to buy additional products. I'm I'm first thing is asking people to stop doing what they're doing. Stop using mouthwash. Get a fluoride free toothpaste. And if you're on ant acids, you must wean off ant acids. And that saves people money typically because now once you stop doing the things that are disrupting nitric oxide production, now your body can actually be primed to make it on its own. And then we just got to activate, stimulate, and support the body. Give the body what it needs. Let the body do its job. Right. Yeah. The mouthwashing is very surprising that there's even association between mouthwash use and like diabetes and neuro degeneration if you're not mistaken. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. you know, and we've been working with the dental community for, you know, about 15 years. And, you know, just this week, we'll be launching a nitric oxide friendly toothpaste because the question, especially in dental medicine, is, you know, you have people with with chronic oral infections and halattosis and dispiosis. So, the challenge for the dentist are how do we selectively kill the pathogens without killing the good guys, non-pathic commensal bacteria? And so, we know that most pathogenic bacteria are sensitive to nitric oxide. So my approach was let's create a toothpaste that targets the microbiome that improves the diversity of the microbiome. Let's let's give a toothpaste that remmineralizes the teeth that you know removes the plaque that normalizes salivary pH and creates an environment to improve diversity of the oral microbiome. What we're finding is that the pathogens can't survive in that condition in that environment. So if we support the microbiome and target the microbiome with our toothpaste and mouth rinse, then you know the pathogens can't survive. So that's what we've been up to for the past eight years and we finally crack the code on that. So we've got a toothpaste in a mouth friends we'll be launching uh in the next week or so. So yeah, like rather than wiping out the bacteria, you would support or you would like increase nitric oxide production that then has anti vir antibacterial effects. Yeah. You know, because we know that you can no physician in the world would tell you or recommend you to take an antibiotic every day, right, for the rest of your life because we know better because we know that destroying the gut microbiome causes systemic disease. So the same principles apply to the oral microbiome. You know, we have to support the microbiome and the ecology. We can't destroy it. And I think there's a there's a change in a conversation and a change in in perspective and perception in the dental community that we we have to support the microbiome. And so this is the first and only nitric oxide friendly toothpaste that's on the market. And we've spent many many years trying to get this right. I think it's going to change the landscape of of healthcare and medicine simply by targeting the microbiome, the oral microbiome. Yeah. And you mentioned nitrates. So, uh, foods that have nitrates, they're good for helping with nitric oxide production like beetroot or spinach and those kind of things. Well, again, they can be, they have the potential to, but only if you have the right oral bacteria because number one, most beef products on the market don't contain any detectable nitrate or nitrate. So, that's problem number one. Number two, as I mentioned, nitrate is inert. You have to have the back because humans don't have an enzyme to metabolize nitrate. So if you take a beetroot powder or eat a vegetarian diet but you're using mouthwash or there's fluoride in your toothpaste or there's fluoride in your drinking water or you're taking ant acids, you do not get any nitric oxide benefit from the foods you're eating or the beetrooted supplements you're taking. So you're completely disrupting that normal pathway. And so that's why we have to focus and you have to understand the mechanism and the pathways involved in in producing nitric oxide gas. And most of these companies out there who are selling trying to sell you beetroot products or nitric oxide products have no understanding of simple basic biochemistry or physiology and they're selling you products that there's no way they can produce nitric oxide. M and so that's, you know, that's one of my main objectives is to educate and inform your listeners and consumers to, you know, not be defrauded by these companies because either there's intentional fraud or they're just ignorant and naive and don't understand the basic biochemistry. But you have to understand what's going on so consumers can make informed decisions on products that actually work and work for them. Gotcha. Yeah. So the microbiome is like the key component here then for sure that and stomach acid. Yeah. Um but um yeah what are some things people can do outside of diet and um supplementation to increase nitric oxide like does exercise increase it? Well, I can, but again, we have to we have to remove the the the inhibitory effects. And so, the big thing is, you know, sugar, you know, there's continuous glucose monitors. You don't even have to have a prescription for them anymore. So, I encourage everybody to get a continuous glucose monitor and then just monitor their go through their daily life, their daily habits, their daily diet, and just see if there's anything you're doing that increases your blood sugar leads to a spike in blood sugar, then you have to eliminate that. Because if you if you consume too much sugar, simple carbohydrates, and you increase blood sugar concentrations, that glucose is sticky, right? Glucose is glue as its name implies. And so everybody's done this. If you spill a soda or sugar beverage on the countertop and you come back the next day, it's sticky, right? You it sticks sticks to everything. So that's what it's doing in our body. The sugar is is sticking molecules together. It binds to hemoglobin. Sticks to hemoglobin. And you know, clinically that's hemoglobin A1C. And it sticks to the enzyme that makes nitric oxide. So if you if you're exercising when you have high blood sugar, you're not going to make any nitric oxide cuz that glucose has glued this enzyme to where it can't undergo confirmational change to produce nitric oxide. It's gluing hemoglobin together where you're not able to deliver oxygen. So you can't oxygenate when you're exercising. So number one, you have to eliminate sugar and prevent this spike in blood sugar. Uh but the if you're doing that and the body's primed then as you mentioned exercise is an potent stimulator of nitric oxide production. So moderate physical exercise 20 30 minutes of moderate physical exercise or you know four to five minutes of highintensity interval training stimulates nitric oxide production increases heart rate increases breath rate. It's very very beneficial. The other thing is you know sunlight 20 to 30 minutes of sunlight. I like the first sunlight in the morning when the sun comes up. watch it. You know, it completely sets your circadian rhythm and it can release and stimulate nitric oxide release. So again, the very simple. So I tell people, you know, you got to stack the hack. If you're going to exercise, exercise first thing in the morning outside because you're getting the benefits of red light or the the sunlight. You're getting the benefits of exercise. Breathing fresh air, nasal breathing is important for nitric oxide production. M so mouth taping at night is is beneficial and I recommend it provided you don't have any airway obstruction but yeah the these are simple kind of common sense things that have been clinically proven to produce nitric oxide but again not if you're using mouthwash not if you're using ant acids and not if you have diabetes and an elevation of sugar and elevation of insulin gotcha what is it with nasal breathing that supports nitric oxide well you know just like the enzyme that's found in the lining of the blood vessels. The nitric oxide synthes enzyme is found in our nasal epithelium. So when we're breathing through our nose, there's these mechano receptors on the epithelial cells. So it's activating these and it tells those epithelial cells to produce nitric oxide. Mhm. And we've known for years that deep breathing, nasal breathing can lower blood pressure because if you have functional nitric oxide synthes, you do nasal breathing, it produces nitric oxide. We're delivering it to the lower airways. We're dilating the bronchules. We're dilating the pulmonary arteries and we're matching ventilation to profusion. We're improving oxygen uptake, improving oxygen delivery, dilating blood vessels, normalizing blood pressure. But again, if you have endothelial dysfunction, you have epithelial dysfunction. If you have an elevation in sugar, that enzyme isn't going to produce nitric oxide when you're nasal breathing. So that's one of the benefits. But mouth breathers on the other hand, and why that's so damaging and leading to a deterioration of your health is because it's not only bypassing this nitric oxide production pathway in the epithelium, but you're fully oxygenating the oral cavity and that lowers the pH, it completely changes the ecology and the environment. So now you're getting these opportunistic pathogens that grow. It downregulates the non- pathogenic commensiles. And so we we have to tape our mouth. The mouth has not ever been a mechanism from a physiological and anatomical standpoint as a as a mechanism of breathing. We breathe through our nose and we deliver oxygen. So we have to get back to nasal breathing. Many times an anatomical issue, you know, so you may have to go see a dentist, get some appliances to fix the anatomy, open up the airway, pull the jaw forward. Um, so sometimes people have some some challenges that have to be resolved before they can tape their mouth. Because if you do mouth taping and you've got an obstructive airway, you know, you could be doing more harm than good. Yeah. What about sauna? Like sauna is pretty good for like blood blood flow and blood pressure. Does it increase nitric oxide? Well, sauna, there's several benefits of sauna. I like an infrared sauna because you're getting the the therapeutic benefits of the infrared light therapy and heat itself causes vasoddilation and it's really independent of nitric oxide because the human body is adapted to its environment. So when we sit like every day before we get on this I was sitting in my infrared sauna at 170 degrees for 30 minutes. So number one it's dilating blood vessels because the body is trying to prevent itself from overheating. So you dilate blood vessels and you expel the heat through sweat and and and basically trying to maintain core body temperature. But the other benefit of a sauna is it helps you detoxify. You know primary detoxification roots include sweating which you do in a sauna, breathing, urination and defecation. And so if we if we can promote and facilitate detoxification pathways then you know our body will thank us for it and we'll be healthier for it. But again most people don't sweat anymore and I think that's one of the benefits of sauna is we it's a primary detoxification route and we have to be sweat. Yeah. Would it be like um so it doesn't Yeah. like directly promote nitric oxide but let's say you take so like you stack it again that you either exercise before the sauna or you take some supplement that increases nitric oxide would you get like greater vasilation effects when you go to the absolutely absolutely and that's exactly what I do I get up in the morning I take my uh beet powder my nitric oxide generating bead powder and then I work out um you know most of the time I don't have a lot of time to do a full workout so I'll do four to five minutes of highintensity interval training. I do 100 push-ups, 100 squats, uh, lunges. It's four to five minutes. I'm in a full sweat. I'm breathing. My heart rate's increased. And then from there, I go into the sauna. So, I've increased circulation. I've increased blood flow. I've optimized my nitric oxide production. So, now I'm getting oxygen in, metabolic waste products out. And then the other thing I highly recommend before you go into sona is take a binder. You know, because if you're toxic, you're going to mobilize those toxins. You need to have a binder on board to bind those toxins so that you can excrete them and not just mobilize them. And so I'll typically take an activated charcoal, bentonite clay or an algae product, spirulina and corella. Usually the the corella and the spirulina because number one, they're nutrientdense providing a lot of basic nutrients, but they help bind any toxins. So that now when I'm in the sauna and I'm I'm mobilizing toxins, I'm I'm more efficiently excreting them from the body. Gotcha. And what kind of supplements are there then that could increase nitric oxide? Well, there's a lot of misconceptions and a lot of misinformation on so-called nitric oxide products out there. Probably 90 95% of the products that are on the market that are marketed as a nitric oxide product provide no nitric oxide benefit. Now, I'm not saying those products are bad because sometimes they contain good ingredients, but they're not nitric oxide products because the companies that are selling this don't understand the basic biochemistry on what it takes to make nitric oxide inside the human body. And that's where kind of my 25 years of research came in because we developed products that actually produce nitric oxide. And I coined a term and trademarked a term called nitrautical not neutrautical but nitrutical and nitruticals as the name implies produce nitric oxide gas. So in in 2007 we published a very important seminal paper showing that nitric oxide is a hormone and so hormone so what we do is hormone replacement therapy with nitric oxide. So you know HRT is is is very common place now. So, in men with low testosterone, you go to your physician and they give you testosterone, right? If your body can't make testosterone, they give you testosterone. If you're a woman and you post menopausal, your body can't make estrogen, they give you estrogen. If your body can't make nitric oxide, we give you nitric oxide gas through these product delivery systems. So, no one in their right mind would say, "Okay, if you're low in testosterone, I'm going to give you DHEA or pregnantone and then we're going to hope your body makes testosterone out of these precursors." That's laughable. And it's it's laughable, too, when companies that giving you inorganic nitrate or arginine or precursors or substrates and hoping your body can produce nitric oxide out of it. The reason you're nitric oxide deficient is because your body has lost the ability to utilize them. The reason you're testosterone deficient is because your body has no longer been able to produce testosterone for a number of reasons. So what we do is we create products that produce nitric oxide gas. We can detect it. We can quantify it. We can verify it. And if it doesn't, then we don't bring it to market. And so we make this in an early disintegrating tablet because it's it's very important to remember nitric oxide is a gas. Mhm. It's not something you can take in a capsule. It's not something you can take in a pill. we have to deliver this gas for you. And so really the only way to do this that we found out is an an ODT, an orly disintegrating tablet that I developed many years ago, but it's a solid dose form of nitric oxide gas. You put it in your mouth, you let it dissolve, and as it's dissolving, it's producing about 20 parts per million nitric oxide gas. And it's vasoactive. We see dilation of the crotage within 10, 15, 20 seconds. Um, but more importantly, so again, it's hormone replacement therapy. for giving you the gas. But because I've spent 25 years in the basic sciences, I understand how do we restore the function of the enzyme. So when you take this lozenge, it recouples the nitric oxide synthes enzyme. So now we're improving the body's ability to produce nitric oxide on its own. And because it's an orally disintegrating tablet, we're restoring the oral microbiome and improving the body's ability to make nitric oxide on its own. So that's number one in the lozage. And number two, because beets have become so popular over the past 10 or 12 years, we felt an obligation and a responsibility to give consumers beet products that actually produce nitric oxide. So we make a product called InnoBs where we ferment the beets, optimize their nitric oxide, we take out the oxalates so people don't get kidney stones from them, and then we remove the beet pulp, the beet taste, the beet fiber so it doesn't look or taste like beets. and we add electrolytes and mitochondrial ATP. And so when you put this powder in water, it immediately starts to generate nitric oxide gas. So you got to put it in two to three ounces of water, mix it, and take it as a shot. Mhm. That's number two. And then number three, I developed a topical nitric oxide for skin care because the the skin is an organ just like the sex organs or the heart of the brain. If if you're not getting an adequate blood supply to the skin, the skin fails. Mhm. You collagen, you lose hydration, fine lines and wrinkles appear and you look older than you should. So the topical nitric oxide is a dual chamber. You take one pump from one side, one pump from the other. When you mix it together, it starts to generate nitric oxide and then you apply it to the face, the neck and it improves blood flow. In fact, you can see this product working right before your eyes because your skin will turn pink reflective of increased blood flow. So it's it's a remarkable product for skincare and beauty. In fact, we're developing it as a topical drug for diabetic ulcers and non-healing wounds. Gotcha. So, so you're saying like yeah that people aren't able to make nitric oxide from the precursors because of you know uh losing the enzyme and microbial dispiosis and just poor health and high blood sugar and those things. Yep. It's like it's like putting gas in a car with a blown up engine, right? They're trying to address something that's not the problem. So, you know, you can't put gas in a car with a blown up engine because the issue is you're not lacking fuel, you've just lost the engine that converts that fuel into what moves it. And the same thing with most products that are designed marketed towards nitric oxide. If you're not fixing the enzyme that makes nitric oxide, giving arginine or citrine, it's the gas that can't be converted. And the same thing, if you want to give nitrate, but you're using mouthwash, you're exposed to fluoride or yon acids, it's not going to get you anywhere. You're going to poop it out, you're going to pee it out, and you're going to sweat it out, right? No nitric oxide benefit. What about like, you know, healthy individuals who are in good health and good good microbiome and those things? Would they be able to like make nitric oxide from, I don't know, beetroot uh citrine, provided there's there's enough nitrate in that beetroot powder to facilitate the production. Regular eating beetroot, how many how many beetroots would they need to eat? Well, you know, that's been a challenge, too, because in 2015, we set out to answer that question. And what we found was it depends on where you live in the soil conditions of where where those vegetables are grown because there's as much as a 50-fold difference in the nitrate content of vegetables grown in Dallas, Los Angeles compared to New York, right? So, you can't it depends upon what vegetable you're eating, where it's grown, what are the soil conditions. M could be, you know, maybe three to four stalks of celery in Dallas, but you'd have to eat 30 or 40 stalks of celery in New York. M. So, we can't make those recommendations because it's so variable in where you live and where the vegetables are grown and how they're grown. Yeah. And sunlight, how much sun they're getting and how much the sunlight. Yeah. the the the um you know the the growth season, the amount of sunlight, the soil conditions, all of those are depend the whole field of aronomy is based on that. You know, how do you grow nutrient-dense vegetables in an optimal fashion to feed a a growing planet population? It's a challenge. Yeah. Is there a way to let's say um restart or uh reset someone's nitric oxide producing capacity like u you know obviously they will start to lose weight and you know fix their diet and those things but uh is there way to like I don't know repopulate so I guess the question is like is it something that you can restore like can you restore this ability to produce nitric oxide again once you quote unquote rejuvenate your body or heal your body? No, absolutely. We call this, you know, in our in our drug discovery program through my company Brian Therapeutics, you know, we're a drug company, but we don't really, well, we're a biotechnology company because we don't employ pharmarmacology, right? Most drug companies are pharmacology, a synthetic compound that inhibits a biochemical reaction and we employ the principles of restorative physiology. And I think it gets to the root of your question because do we understand how the human body makes nitric oxide? We understand what leads to a loss of its natural production and we can fix that. We can restore that. So the answer is yes. We understand how to restore the oral microbiome. We understand how to restore the function of the the enzyme and the lining of the blood vessels and the epithelial cells. And if all else fails, then we have products that do it for you. But yeah, you have to you have to get back to the basics and again stop doing the things that disrupt it. Start doing the things that promote it. Eliminate sugar. simple carbohydrates, get rid of mouthwash, get rid of ant acids, get rid of fluoride, target the oral microbiome with your oral care. So, I recommend people change their toothpaste to our nitric oxide friendly toothpaste, which targets the microbiome. If you want to use mouthwash, which I don't recommend, but we're creating a mouthwash that's nitro that's a nitric oxide friendly, microbiome friendly mouthwash to help restore the microbiome to help restore normal nitric oxide production. And then moderate physical exercise, a balanced diet in moderation. And many times that's sufficient. Gotcha. Yeah. And sometimes just you need some extra push or some uh aid as well to get it started. Get this kind of a process started. Yeah. Know we live in a toxic world and the food we eat is nutrient depleted and sprayed with chemicals that destroy the microbiome. So it's a challenge. It's it's hard work and it's a challenge to stay healthy and we all need help and I think everybody needs to supplement something because we're not getting it from the food and we're constantly inhibited from the environmental exposure of toxins. Yeah. I've also heard online some posts about that nitric oxide is also harmful like in excess or it like causes oxidative stress because it is like you know a gas. What do you think about that? Well, I think those people are ignorant and uninformed or misinformed, right? And so I've hear those too. I get, you know, dozens of emails a day on people saying, "Well, if you this guy says that nitric oxide is a useless gas. It's inhibiting mitochondrial respiration and you got to avoid nitric oxide." Well, if you look at the credentials of these people who are saying this, they've never published a single paper in the nitric oxide. Many don't even have advanced degrees. Some maybe have a high school education. Uh, so they're really not qualified and I don't, you know, criticize them for that. It's just it is what it is. Those are the facts. So if you're uninformed or misinformed, but yet you're an influencer out there influencing the decisions of millions of people, it's quite dangerous because they just don't have the scientific knowledge or the biochemistry and the physiology to make those type of statements. So, but I will say if you read the published literature from really good accomplished scientists, many times you'll see that in the literature because if you look at inflammatory disease, autoimmune disease and you look at the pathology of the hisytologology in those conditions, nitric oxide will always be there. And so they say, "Oh, nitric oxide is is found in ulcerative colitis and inflammatory bowel disease." uh symmetitric oxide contributes or is part of the pathogenesis of that condition. And I don't I never argue with data because data are data. What I argue with is the interpretation of the data. So saying that would be blaming the fire trucks on the fire. Because if there's a fire, the fire trucks are always going to show up. So just because they're there doesn't mean they caused the fire or started the fire. They're there to put out the fire. And that's what nitric oxide is doing in any infection, in any inflammatory insult. Nitric oxide is part of the anti-inflammatory environment. So of course, it's going to be there. It's the fire trucks going to the fire, right? And so association is not causation. And that's the misinterpretation of all this from these people who really have no business as biohackers with no credentials, no medical or scientific background say making these statements. It's irresponsible and it's dangerous, right? Yeah. like you find it a lot with a lot of different pathways like um you know ataj is another one that uh or at least that's not what people use as an example that often but it is also like involved in cancer metastasis but it's not necessarily like causing it. It's again the cancer is hijacking the process of to survive itself. So it's yeah like again like it's kind of showing up there as as like a by bystander and gets gets kind of the blame. Yeah. like the best example it's the it's people blaming the fire trucks and the firemen on the fire. I mean it's I I don't have a better analogy and it's just you know it's a misinterpretation of data and it's said by people who have no credentials uh and no business making those type of statements. M but is it possible that like too high dose of nitric oxide you like artificially raise your nitric oxide too high with supplementation some some other methods uh could it be harmful in that scenario? Absolutely. You know water is essential but if you drink too much water in a short amount of time it'll kill you. It's it's you know hypotonic lis and you hear it on the news all the time. Yeah. Dose dictates poison. So if you take too much nitric oxide and really we've never seen this uh but yeah there's two signs of toxicity. Number one you could get an unsafe drop in blood pressure where you could lose profusion pressure you could get laded and you pass out. The other only sign of toxicity is a condition called met hemoglobinia. So if there's too much nitric oxide it oxidizes the hem iron and hemoglobin and reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of the red cell. And so patients will become cyanotic. They'll get blue around the lips, sinosis, because they become hypoxic. But you know, it was once thought that during sepsis when you get systemic infection and your immune cells produce a lot of nitric oxide, septic patients lose profusion pressure. They get an unsafe drop in blood pressure. You you lose profusion pressure to the kidneys. You get kidney damage, kidney failure. You lose profusion pressure to the brain, to the heart, and you get end organ failure. And that's what leads to death in septic patients. And in the '9s, it was thought that if it was the overp production of nitric oxide that led to the systemic vasoddilation and the loss of profusion pressure. So in some very well-designed clinical trials, they gave inhibitors of nitric oxide production to try to prevent the unsafe drop in blood pressure in septic patients. And what they found was the patients who got the nitric oxide inhibitor actually had a higher mortality. it was killing more patients than the placebo. So again, that told us that inhibiting nitric oxide production even in sepsis leads to increased death and mortality. So nitric oxide isn't contributing to the loss of profusion pressure in sepsis. U again it's the fire truck arriving at the fire. Uh and if you don't get the fire truck there, you inhibit or there's a a roadblock or traffic jam. the building burns down and people die and that's nitric oxide, right? But what is like a let's say a safe moderate amount for generally so people who want to generally like improve their health uh for like longevity purposes? Well, again we've answered this question but just for clarity you you have to be able to answer that question. You have to be able to understand how much nitric oxide is being produced in a healthy human optimal conditions before you can start to make products to restore that. Right? So the best example is vitamin D and it's the closest example I can think. So vitamin D is a hormone. You can test your blood levels for it and we try to get patients to around 80. Right? So if you've got a vitamin D level of 30, then we treat you, we titrate you, we dose you until we can get it to 80 and then we probably have to back down the dose to maintain that, right? So we need to get to optimal and then maintain optimal. So unfortunately with nitric oxide, we can't draw blood and say your nitric oxide levels are 30. We need to get it to 80, right? Because it's a gas, it's gone in less than a second. So what we had to do and we did this 20 years ago is you do radial lababelled isotope studies looking at how much arginine is converted to citrine through this enzyatic reaction of the nitric oxide synthes. That's one contributes about 50% of the nitric oxide. And then you look at normal dietary patterns. How much nitrate are you getting from your diet? And assuming you have the adequate oral nitrate reducing bacterium, assuming that patient has sufficient stomach acid production, how much nitric oxide are you getting from your diet, from the bacteria and from the production in aluminum of the stomach? And then we come up with a number and that's been my metric for developing product technology. So for to answer your question for maintenance for optimal nitric oxide, you need one or two of our lozenes a day. That's it. because it's it's it's it's providing that daily dose of nitric oxide that we would need to optimize those productions pathways both from the NOS and both from the diet. But if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, early dementia, Alzheimer's, then it's you're going to need much more because you've been compromised for so long and there's inhibitory pathways even though we can help restore the function of the the the bacteria if you're continuing to use mouthwash or fluoride. Then every day you're disrupting that. Every day we got to repopulate it. If you have an elevation in sugar, endothelial dysfunction, we can restore the function of that enzyme, but if you continue to have elevation in blood sugar, insulin, you continue to destroy that enzyme, the function of the enzyme. So in those patients, you know, you may need two, three, maybe four, five lozenes a day. So, and that's why we rely on healthcare practitioners to make the best medical judgment on what's needed for that particular patient or you know dose accordingly. If you're dosing for blood pressure, it's very easy. You monitor your blood pressure, take a lozenge, it goes back up, take another lozenge, but everybody's different. There's no one size fits all for anyone, right? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh you mentioned uh earlier skin benefits for nitric oxide. So, that's quite interesting. So does it have to do with better blood flow to the skin like better supply of nutrients? Better yeah all of the above. And the other thing is you know as I mentioned nitric oxide mobilizes stem cells. So skin is a highly regenerative organ right we're always sloughing off the dermaps the epidermis and we're replacing those hopefully replacing those with with functional cells. So the skin if you don't have good dermal blood flow or circulation then number one you don't mobilize stem cells you slough off old cells but you really don't have the functional cells to replace those and then we lose hydration we lose collagen your skin begins to sag and so what we what we found in our five published peer-reviewed published clinical trials on the serum is that when we when we generate the nitric oxide it diffuses into the skin it recruits capillaries it increases blood flow improves oxygenation, improves cellular turnover, improves collagen deposition and the face and the skin becomes firmer, fine lines and wrinkles disappear or get better tone, texture, clarity of the skin improves and it's a topical. But what we're finding in best results is you take the loss and systemically to open everything up systemically. You apply the serum topically. Now we're hitting it from the inside and out and remarkable results with that. Yeah. In fact, so good in in aesthetics and beauty that we're seeing remarkable effects in wound healing, non-healing diabetic ulcers. Um, you know, wounds that won't heal for three, four, five years. We can heal these wounds with our topical nitric oxide in a period of months, sometimes weeks. Interesting. Yeah. Um, you know, there's like one of the CO2 therapy, I think, for the skin that works through like a similar mechanism that Yeah. CO2 laser. Yeah. Yeah. And there's also like something like some sort of CO2 mask that uh also has like that kind of effect that increases blood flow to the skin like you know you feel it that it's kind of a bubbling there. Yeah. Know look the aesthetics and beauty is this multi-billion dollar a year market and you know a lot of the the the industry is getting away from you know kind of surgical interventions and non-surgical facelifts and you know I'm not a big fan of Botox because it's a toxin. I mean, I don't know why anybody would inject a toxin, a known toxin. It's botulism toxin, but it's a billion-dollar industry. And so, what is it? It's tightening up the it's it's paralyzing the muscles so you don't get the wrinkles or the laugh lines or the the lines in the forehead. But what I try to target is let's restoive physiology. What's the underlying problem? Well, it's a vascular component. Let's improve vascularity. Let's improve blood flow. Let's improve collagen deposition and allow the body to do its job. So these non-surgical faceelifts, I think nitric oxide is fundamental and foundational for that. Yeah. You mentioned like mouthwash and the sugar that reduce the nitric oxide. Are there like anything else in the household that you know accidentally is reducing people's nitric oxide? Well, certainly chemical sore in um you know mo anything that's antiseptic and people bathing two to three times a day to destroy the the bacteria that live on their body you know is harmful and I don't I'm not you know the best example is in nature if you give your dog a bath or I live on a ranch and I ride horses so after I ride with horses I I wash them off you know I don't really put soap on them unless there's a some type of problem. But what do they do? You bathe your dog, you bathe your horse, first thing they do is they go roll around in the dirt. Mhm. Because they go they reininoate themselves with these ammonia oxidizing bacteria that are responsible for oxidizing ammonia in the sweat back to nitric oxide. And so when you're bathing and using soap and shampoos to destroy the dermal microbiome, the skin microbiome, then people get acne, they get eczema, they get psoriasis, they get dermatitis. Uh again, we have to support the micro the the microbiome, the skin microbiome, the oral microbiome, the gut microbiome and women the vaginal flora and the vaginal microbiome and we can't destroy it. We got to support it. Yeah. But this whole hygiene hypothesis of of disease and people using antibacterial, you know, I get on a plane and they want to give you an antibacterial wipe, you can wipe everything down and sterilize everything. No, that's the worst thing you can do. Uh we need bacteria. We need to be inoculated. Um the evidence is indisputable. Yeah. Yeah. Like you know I grew up in the countryside and always like played in the grass and the dirt. So getting this strong bacteria uh built immune system built up from that. But yeah like in the modern world people are very sterile with everything. Yeah. They don't want their kid in the dirt. They try to keep them clean and sterile. And it's but the data are very clear. People, kids who grow up in a rural environment, in dirt, in the land, in nature, historically and very predictably have better health outcomes, lower incense of high blood pressure, diabetes, autoimmune disease, better immune function, and it's because they've got a more diverse microbiome. Mhm. Yeah. Does air quality or pure pure air like have any role in that as well in the nitrogen? Yeah, for sure. you know, especially in in in America, in the south, especially in the the tropical areas, even in Texas where I live, mold is a problem. Mh. So, if you got mold and micotoxins, you're breathing it in and it's, you know, cause disrupting a and causing a lot of people illness and it goes undiagnosed. In fact, a lot of times it's misdiagnosed as Lyme disease. Um, so yeah, big fan of air purifiers. Um, you know, but I live I live out in the country on 800 acres, so I'm not I'm pretty isolated. the air we breathe is is clean, but we still got, you know, an ozone generator in our duct of our air conditioning system in the home. But yeah, breathing good, clean, purified air, drinking good, clean, purified, remmineralized water is extremely important. Gotcha. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that is very important about nitric oxide? You know, I think look, we've covered a lot in 45 or 50 minutes, but I think the my take-home message is just, you know, understand what this very simple molecule is and what it does. And then just take account of your daily activities and what are you doing that may be disrupting your nitric oxide production because I tell there's only two people in the world who need nitric oxide. There's people that are sick and want to get well, you need nitric oxide. And then if you're well and don't want to get sick, you need nitric oxide, right? So for me, you know, people go, "Well, how do I test? How do I know?" And I go, "Well, you know, you need it, so you take it." I've been taking it for almost 20 years. Not because I need it, it's because I don't want to need it. Because I know that the foods that I'm eating when I'm traveling, I'm on an airplane every week, I'm staying in hotels, I can't always control my environment, and I know it's compromising my ability to produce nitric oxide. And so I need that daily supplement. And I haven't been sick with a viral or bacterial infection in probably more than 20 years. So it's not that I live in a sterile world, just that my body knows how to deal with it. Right? So if you're sick and been dealing in poorly managed disease, then you know consider nitric oxide as a potential cause but also a potential solution for your condition. Yeah. And also eat a good diet. Get clean air. Don't overeat. Yeah. intermittent fasting. You know, these are these are simple things that I found work for me and work for a lot of people. If you do an 18 hour fast every day, eat your last meal at 6 p.m. Don't eat again until noon, the results, the data on intermittent fasting, caloric restriction are undeniable. We're overfed, especially in America, right? An 18 hour fast every day is remarkable. Uh and then, yeah, avoid sugars, balanced diet in moderation. We got to move, we got to exercise, we got to sweat. U so start with that. Those are the basics. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Uh and to get dirty as well in the in the grass. That's right. Don't roll around in dirt. Yeah. Uh yeah. Well, it's been a great talking with you and thank you for sharing your information about Ricides before asking my last question. Where can people learn more about you and your work? You know, I just published a book a couple of weeks ago for the Brick Tower Press and my agent Alam Morel and Creative Management Partners, but it's a it really tells the the history of nitric oxide. It's called The Secret of Nitric oxide, bringing the science to life, and it kind of recounts my journey in in science and discovery and innovation, but I think more importantly, it it reveals what nitric oxide is, how it was discovered, what led to a Nobel Prize, and why everybody out there should should be concerned with this molecule. So, I refer people to this book. It's the latest. Um, you can get it at nathan'sbook.com or Barnes & Noble, Amazon, anywhere books are sold. Uh, I highly encourage people to subscribe to my YouTube channel, Dr. Nathan S. Brian. Nitric oxide will, you know, put content out there, educational, informative content like this. Um, and for products, then go to n101.com. That's the letter N, the number one, the letter, number one.com. And then I'm on social media, Instagram at Dr. Nathan S. Brian, um, LinkedIn, Facebook, um, and I'm searchable on most search engines. Yeah, we'll put the links in the show notes. And my last question is, what's this one piece of advice or a habit that you wish you adopted sooner? What's repeat again, I'm sorry. What kind of advice or a habit that you wish you adopted sooner? Um, you know, I wish I would have recognized the the toxicity and the the dangers of sugar early on as a kid. You know, today I don't have any major health problems. Uh, but when you look at and I think the younger we are, the more resilient we are. And so I look back at what my diet was when I was a kid. Um, but I was very active. So sometimes younger people, if they're active, they can burn this, they can metabolize it and use it as a fuel. But the older we get and the less active we become, that sugar builds up, causes damage, causes inflammation, it's stored as fat, and it's causing enormous health problems. But I think if we could go back and just understand the toxicity of sugar and then especially in the US affect the policy makers and the people who are doing dietary recommendations and building the the food pyramid chart and making dietary guidelines need to understand this because we have to eliminate sugar from the human body and from the diet. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That's a good good advice. Uh well, yeah. Well, thanks for coming to the show and yeah, looking forward to future discoveries about nitric oxide. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. All right, that's it for this episode. Make sure you check out my new book, The Longevity Leap on Amazon. I'd also appreciate if you share this episode with a friend or family member. Other than that, my name is Seam. Stay tuned for the next episode. Stay in port.