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.

Heavy metal exposure is unavoidable…that is just a fact. Heavy metals can be found in our drinking water, our food supply, our air, our soil, and in many environments on the planet. It is a consequence of the Industrial Revolution and the modern benefits we reap from advances in medicine, automotive, and other industries. Thankfully, everything is not all doom and gloom. There is a way to deal with these metals. The answer: a heavy metal cleanse?

How do we do this? The answer is built into our bodies. We have a series of organs that work together to detox our bodies and flush out harmful toxins and heavy metals. The organs that make up our detox system are the liver and kidneys. However, there are other organs that play a role as well. The lymphatic system, GI tract, lungs, and even skin all play a role in detoxing the body. While all these organs are important, the powerhouse organ is the liver. In this article, we will look at the liver’s role in a heavy metal cleanse and how you can support the liver to optimize its health.

All About The Liver

The liver is a powerhouse organ. It is the largest internal organ and has hundreds of functions designed to keep you alive and well. Out of these functions, only a few matters for this article. I will break them down into categories. The big functions of the liver include:

• Filtration
• Vitamin and mineral storage
• Digestion
• Metabolism
• Detoxification
• Protein synthesis

While we could use this whole article to dive into the specifics of these functions, that is not our goal. Remember, we are looking at how to support the liver for a heavy metal cleanse. Therefore, detoxification and micronutrient storage are the categories we will focus on before looking at how to support the liver’s health.

Vitamin And Mineral Storage

One of the liver’s functions is producing, storing, and releasing vitamins and minerals into the bloodstream. Some of the vitamins the liver controls include:

• Vitamin B12 – responsible for cellular health and growth
• Vitamin A – helps support eye health and vision
• Vitamin D – supports immune health and bone health among other things
• Vitamin K – works with vitamin D to promote healthy blood clotting and promotes calcium transportation to the right areas of the body

While some of the vitamins and minerals the liver holds are a good thing, this function is a double-edged sword. While the liver stores good vitamins and minerals such as iron and copper (which are metals), it can store heavy metals that are toxic to us as well. Therefore, it is important to support the liver with a heavy metal cleanse. We want to make sure the liver is storing the helpful vitamins and minerals only.

Detoxification: A Heavy Metal Cleanse

The basic idea of detoxification is to make sure that substances that do not belong in the body are removed from the blood and excreted by stool or urine once the liver uses enzymes to convert the toxic material into urea or bile. The liver makes sure the blood toxicity levels in your body stay at a low level.

The Importance Of A Healthy Liver

Just from these functions alone, it is clear the liver is the most important organ for detoxing the body. Because of this, keeping the liver healthy is in our best interest. Once heavy metals begin to accumulate in the liver, all sorts of problems arise. Some health problems you might experience once heavy metal accumulation occurs in the liver include:

• Jaundice
• Abdominal pain
• Loss of appetite
• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Fever
• Itchy skin and rashes
• Swelling in the extremities

Foods And Supplements That Support Liver Health For A Heavy Metal Cleanse

None of these are ideal, so liver health is vital to do a heavy metal cleanse. So how do we keep our liver healthy? I will list off several foods and supplements that work to support your liver so you can detox effectively.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #1: Green Tea

Tea is used across many cultures as a tool for healing. While tea is widely used and accepted as beneficial for your health, it is also beneficial for the liver. When I talk about tea here, I am talking about green tea. A study conducted on people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease showed improvement in liver enzyme production after a few months when regularly drinking green tea. As a word of caution, there has been some research suggesting green tea extract can cause liver damage in some people, so talk to a doctor before going heavy on it. However, for most people, a cup of green tea once a day is just fine.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #2: Berries

Berries make this list because not only are they delicious, but they are packed full of antioxidants. Antioxidants are important because of free radicals. Free radicals are created when heavy metals create oxidative stress. These free radicals can cause inflammation and other problems quickly. Antioxidants neutralize those free radicals and reduce inflammation. Some of the best berries to eat to boost your antioxidants include:

• Cranberries
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Elderberries

However, I want to highlight blueberries. The anthocyanins found in blueberries give them their deep color. Furthermore, there are studies showing a few weeks of blueberry and other berry juices not only boosts immune health but also protects the liver from damage and inflammation. Your liver needs antioxidants to protect itself from heavy metal damage. So, to do a heavy metal cleanse properly, supply your liver with berries for antioxidants.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #3: Beetroot/Beetroot Juice

Like berries, beetroots are also packed with antioxidants to protect the liver from free radical damage. One of the big perks of beetroot and beetroot juice is its nitrate content. Nitrates convert into nitric oxide within the endothelium of blood vessels. As this happens, nitric oxide gets released into the bloodstream. When this happens, your blood vessels expand, and blood flow becomes more efficient. This means oxygen and nutrients are transported faster throughout the body where they are needed. This means the good vitamins and minerals in the liver get transported to vital areas faster while heavy metals get excreted more effectively. Beetroot shows us that nitric oxide is a friend to your liver, so make sure you do what you can do to boost it during a heavy metal cleanse.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #4: Leafy Greens

It is easier to lump all these vegetables into a single category rather than write about them all individually. These include kale, arugula, spinach, mustard greens, lettuce, chard, and other leafy green vegetables. All these vegetables are packed full of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals that keep your liver and the rest of your body healthy. Any natural heavy metal cleanse would include leafy greens.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #5: Fish

This one is tricky. Yes, some fish that are “good for you” also happen to be the ones most likely to contain mercury or lead. So, knowing the source of your fish is highly important here. However, despite the heavy metal contamination risk, fish is still good for you. We need the omega-3 fatty acids fish contains to reduce inflammation and liver fat accumulation. This means eating fish can help your liver perform better. Since the liver is responsible for detoxing our body, that is kind of important. Just make sure you check and verify the source of your fish. Pay close attention to where salmon, tuna, and swordfish come from.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #6: Olive Oil

Olive oil has research that supports its being able to improve fat levels and enzyme levels in the liver. Furthermore, olive oil also supports insulin sensitivity. Olive oil is a healthy source of good fats to add to your diet during or after a heavy metal cleanse to keep your liver healthy.

Heavy Metal Cleanser #7: Micronutrients

We know the liver produces, stores, and releases essential vitamins and minerals into the bloodstream. To get a better grip on specific micronutrients the liver needs to function, below you will find a list of some of the vitamins and minerals the liver needs to stay healthy.

• Selenium
• Iron
• Vitamin A
• Vitamin B12
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K
• Magnesium

This list is not a complete list, but these are some of the most important vitamins and minerals needed for a healthy liver. Any heavy metal cleanse done medically or at home would need to include these vitamins and minerals to make sure the liver has what it needs to do its job.

Final Thoughts

Your liver is essential for your overall health and the most important organ for a heavy metal cleanse. You need to give it all the support you can to keep it healthy. All the foods and supplements listed above will help your liver function optimally.  If you want to learn more about heavy metals or how to live a healthier life, check out the rest of our blog here.