Nitric oxide (NO) has been studied hard for the past few decades, and in that time, researchers have found that this gas provides numerous health benefits. Each of these benefits works together to keep us alive and healthy. While some of the benefits nitric oxide provide will carry more weight than others, each benefit enhances your quality of life in some way. This article will explore some of these benefits and discuss how these benefits enhance your quality of life.
Nitric Oxide 101
For the sake of saving myself explanation further in the article, most of the health benefits of nitric oxide are because of vasodilation. Vasodilation is the relaxing and expanding of your blood vessels. This happens when nitric oxide is produced and released from the lining of your arteries. When this blood vessel expansion happens, your blood flows more effectively. With this, your blood transports oxygen and vital nutrients to essential areas. This means your heart, lungs, liver, and other vital organs all benefit in some way from vasodilation.
How Is Nitric Oxide Created?
The body uses three compounds to produce nitric oxide: nitrates, l-arginine, and l-citrulline. Each of these uses a different pathway to produce nitric oxide, but the body uses these compounds to convert them into nitric oxide. Nitrates are typically found in vegetables and some fruits. This is the primary ingredient for producing nitric oxide in the body. L-arginine and L-citrulline are both amino acids found in certain foods like meat, dairy, and fruits. In case you didn’t catch that, all these compounds for producing nitric oxide are found in food. This means your diet is an important factor in how much nitric oxide you have available in the body.
How Do You Boost Nitric Oxide?
The primary way to boost nitric oxide is by adding food into your diet which contains the three precursors for producing nitric oxide. A diet with a balance between red meat, fish, poultry, leafy greens, whole grains, fruits, seeds, and nuts will give you ample amounts of each ingredient needed for the body to produce nitric oxide. Other ways you can produce more nitric oxide naturally include:
Exercise
Practice nasal breathing
Get some sunlight
Avoid excessive alcohol consumption
Avoid smoking/using tobacco products
10 Benefits Of Nitric Oxide That Enhance Your Quality Of Life
So now that we know some basic info about nitric oxide, let’s get into how nitric oxide enhances your quality of life. After I list these ten, I’ll throw in a few bonus benefits as well.
#1: NO enhances your quality of life by promoting heart health.
It goes without saying you need your heart healthy to stay alive. So, in this case, nitric oxide literally helps keep you alive. Thanks to nitric oxide’s effect on blood vessels, your blood circulation improves. As blood circulation improves, your blood pressure will lower. High blood pressure is a big factor in cardiovascular disease, the risk of heart attack, and the risk of having a stroke. Having higher levels of nitric oxide in your body helps reduce the risk of all these health concerns. To put it simply, better heart health equals an enhanced quality of life.
#2: NO enhances your quality of life by increasing your energy.
Nitric oxide improves energy in a couple of ways. First, NO improves energy by improving blood circulation. As circulation improves, oxygen and vital nutrients are transported to your cells and muscles. When this happens, many people report increased energy and stamina.
Second, nitric oxide improves energy by reducing inflammation. Inflammation is caused by free radicals that are produced from means such as heavy metal exposure, poor diet, alcohol and tobacco use, and other lifestyle habits. Nitric oxide helps reduce inflammation by combating those free radicals. When this happens, your energy levels will naturally increase as inflammation decreases.
#3: NO enhances your quality of life by improving exercise performance.
Nitric oxide’s effects on the blood improve exercise performance. There is research showing nitric oxide improves exercise endurance for endurance sports such as swimming and cycling. Furthermore, there is support for nitric oxide helping improve recovery between workouts when you supplement with l-arginine and/or l-citrulline. Remember, these amino acids are used by the body to make nitric oxide. What does this have to do with enhancing your quality of life? Well, being able to exercise as you get older will help promote good health and decrease the risk of cardiovascular problems that become more likely as you become more sedentary. Movement is medicine. Since nitric oxide helps your muscles recover and work longer, improving exercise performance enhances your quality of life.
#4: NO enhances your quality of life by improving your immune health.
Yes, nitric oxide supports your immune system. Higher nitric oxide levels not only reduce inflammation but also helps fight off foreign intruders. White blood cells use nitric oxide to destroy bacteria, making nitric oxide incredibly useful for fighting off any colds or other diseases. The less you are sick, the better your quality of life is.
#5: NO enhances your quality of life by improving your libido.
This one you can argue isn’t necessary for enhancing your quality of life, but it’s open to individual interpretation. Many people would argue that sexual health is part of an overall enhanced quality of life. Nitric oxide promotes a healthy libido by improving blood flow throughout the body. For some, this reduces the symptoms of erectile dysfunction. While this benefit is not a guarantee, many do experience some improvement in ED symptoms and overall libido/energy when using NO supplements or increasing NO naturally through diet and exercise
#6: NO enhances your quality of life by improving brain health.
Nitric oxide is a neurotransmitter, meaning it helps cells communicate in the brain. Having high levels of nitric oxide improves brain health by improving neuroplasticity, improving concentration, and improving memory. All these positive effects offset the risk of developing neurodegenerative problems such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. A sharp brain equals an enhanced quality of life.
#7: NO enhances your quality of life by decreasing the risk of Type II Diabetes.
If you are suffering from type 2 diabetes, your nitric oxide production is impaired. This leads to poor blood vessel health. This dysfunction in the blood vessels leads to poor blood circulation, high blood pressure, and the development of diseases such as heart and kidney disease. Boosting your nitric oxide levels with l-arginine or other precursors will help increase insulin sensitivity and improve blood vessel health. These improvements will make diabetes more manageable. If you do not have diabetes yet but are at an increased risk due to genetics or poor lifestyle choices, keeping your nitric oxide levels high will lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
#8: NO enhances your quality of life by improving lung health.
The efficiency of oxygen transportation throughout the lungs is another vital function that keeps you alive. If there is poor oxygen circulation, you can experience symptoms such as fatigue, blue lips, tunnel vision, dizziness, and difficulty breathing. Boosting your nitric oxide levels helps improve blood circulation and oxygen circulation. This definitely counts as enhancing your quality of life.
#9: NO enhances your quality of life by supporting weight loss.
Being overweight or obese can lead to numerous health problems such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and more. While a balanced diet and exercise will do plenty for helping you lose weight, having high nitric oxide levels are beneficial for weight loss as well. This is because nitric oxide promotes optimal nutrition circulation. This means your muscles and organs are getting the fuel they need to burn fat and lose weight. Furthermore, exercise produces nitric oxide. So, a cycle becomes created, whereas you engage in exercise, your body produces more nitric oxide. This NO makes exercising easier, and so on. As your weight drops, you are less at risk of becoming overweight or obese. This drastically reduces the risk of many diseases. Weight loss enhances your quality of life, so supplement with some nitric oxide.
#10: NO enhances your quality of life by promoting healthy skin.
While this is not necessarily needed, one can argue that healthy skin enhances your quality of life because you are less stressed about how your skin appears. Nitric oxide helps protect the skin from UV radiation, keeping it supple.
Bonus Benefits
Some extra benefits that nitric oxide provides that enhance your quality of life include:
Speeding up wound healing
Improves quality of sleep
Helps prevent blood clots
Aids in digestion
It is unbelievable the benefits that are reaped from optimizing nitric oxide.
Final Thoughts
Nitric oxide is known as the “miracle molecule” for a reason: it is essential for your life and health. Nitric oxide provides many benefits that enhance your quality of life.
If you want to check out more information on living a healthier lifestyle as you get older, check out the rest of our blog right here.
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