FWIW
I repeat myself
Less than .19¢ per tablet and your NO increases.
It is not gender specific.
Updated: Instead of sucking lozenges or taking Cialis it appears that nitrates may have some extraordinary extra health benefits for our gut microbiome that could make ingesting them worthwhile.
I have run into a problem, however, with my current experiment with taking nitrates that is commonly called gastro. I am also concerned about the level of carbs in beets and oxalates in spinach.
The benefits listed in this study below are quite remarkable, but how might humans achieve this same result by simply adding nitrates to our chow?
Sodium nitrate looks like a cheap candidate but with all the white powders in our cabinets there is of course the risk of mistaken overdose.
I might have come up with the solution which is to grind up sodium nitrate into a fine powder and add it to my sea salt and kelp mix that we salt our food at the table with. The other article I have linked below shows evidence that this way of taking nitrates may be beneficial on a few levels.
They are suggesting using vegetable derived nitrates, as this is what they sell, but sodium nitrate tastes like salt and I am thinking should be fine in these controlled small doses?
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Celery is my choice for nitrates. Almost zero calories and high in nitrates (confirmed by test strips). Celery powder is used as a preservative due to the high nitrates (in products that advertise “no artificial nitrates added”). I eat with hummus or add chopped into my dinner. But the NO benefit only lasts 12 hours so I also supplement in AM with capsules with nitrate and nitrite. I also have changed my oral hygiene to protect my oral microbiome (changes nitrate into nitrite).
I avoid adding sodium. My BP seems to be sensitive to sodium unless I am losing a lot via sweat.
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Have you tried citrulline? It comes in tablet form, or powder.
With regard to vegetables, arugula seems to outscore beetroot.
Here are the top ten widely available sources. And with all this talk about beet juice, you’d think beets might be #1, but they just barely made the top ten list. Swiss chard has more; next comes oak leaf lettuce; then beet greens; basil; spring greens, like mesclun mix; butter leaf lettuce; cilantro; rhubarb; and arugula (also known as rocket lettuce). Now, beet juice would actually be here, but we always want to choose whole foods to maximize the nutrition. As you can see, there was actually one stem vegetable, and it came in #2, even—rhubarb! But eight out of the top ten are green leafies, with the winner by a large margin being arugula! 18 times more nitrate than kale! I may have a new favorite vegetable.
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Funny that growing up on the farm we have always tried to avoid letting animals graze on plants that have too much nitrate. Also check well water and make sure it’s under 10 or 15 or your baby might turn blue. Also farmers are criticized for using nitrogen ( kind of like criticizing humans for breathing because it makes CO2 ) because it pollutes the water. Now we’re trying to increase nitrate.
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Funny. It turns out that organic produce has less nitrates because of fertilizer.
I love celery - it is the secret ingredient in a great soup or salad. Did you see the article about adding nitrates when eating salt? It seems to fix the BP problem - hence my idea.
I heard about the organic thing. Might be time they changed the amount that growers are allowed to use.
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@Bicep Yes - like how they warn us about not going in the sun: another great source of NO, as long as you get a bit of a sweat up and have some nitrates on your skin. I have come up with a 2 part spray I use just to be sure. The NO production on your skin works like sunscreen by helping you tan and reversing sun damage.
I have got into this more for my husband who, besides having other symptoms of low NO, also didn’t tan anymore despite his Persian background. Not a good sign. The 2 part spray has fixed that and his other issues too. Our diet is pretty good but adding it to the salt should make it easy and looks like it might protect his BP too.
@JuanDaw - Thanks we were taking L-arginine but then discovered that apparently this pathway doesn’t work so well when you are older and can just cause a lot of oxidative pollution downstream. Dietry nitrates and sun exposure apparently work better when we are older.
Arugula, which we call rocket in Australia, is a great tip. We grow tons of it in the garden and just love it so that one isn’t difficult.
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Thanks. I missed that before. A quick read didn’t reveal the mechanism for offsetting sodium.
Based on my interviews with Robert Johnson MD:
High sodium pulls water into the blood increasing blood pressure. The kidneys get rid of the extra salt but can be damaged by the high blood pressure resulting in an increasing failure to get rid of all the extra sodium.
From my interview with Beth Shirley:
Dietary nitrates (if converted to nitrites) can cause higher NO which relaxes blood vessels, lowering BP.
So it does seem plausible. Timing (speed of effect) would be important to avoid damage to kidneys (and the brain). Hmmmm.
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Thanks we were taking L-arginine but then discovered that apparently this pathway doesn’t work so well when you are older and can just cause a lot of oxidative pollution downstream. Dietry nitrates and sun exposure apparently work better when we are older.
Thank you. Didn’t know that. Can you cite your reference? Not doubting your info. Just want to read it for myself.
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@desertshores posted this extremely interesting movie about MB and nitric oxide in another thread that might be interesting to some people following this thread. Although MB is used to decrease NO in some situations this is when iNOS has been activated and NO production is over active. Down regulating it does not stop it’s production but improves its levels and efficiency.
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I was thinking the other day, why would’t low dose Nitroglycerin be a good supplement for NO? Nitroglycerin is metabolized to yield nitric oxide.
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I’d second that, it gets past the whole nitrate/nitrite/stomach cancer issue.
Nitroglycerin is also topically absorbed without any fancy formulation. If I remember correctly, I think in the early years explosive workers used to complain of vascular headaches due to their contact with nitroglycerin.
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Exactly why I am not big fan of NO supplements since all contain nitrites and/or nitrates.
It is even available as slow release transdermal patch and it really costs almost nothing… comparing it to some of the supplements.
Very interesting - thanks for the suggestion.
Double check the science on nitrates. No issues if consumed with vit C (as in vegetables).
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Do you have any sources for that?
Here’s one. Lot’s of info on this if you are curious. Avoid processed meat (with high added nitrates), yes. Don’t avoid veggies with nitrates (and vit c); dietary nitrates are the key to NO for older adults.
Nitrates and nitrites are nitrogen-oxygen chemical units that naturally occur in soil, water, and some foods. When taken into the body by drinking water and through other dietary sources, nitrate and nitrite can react with amines and amides to form N-nitroso compounds (NOC), which are known to cause cancer in animals and may cause cancer in humans.
The biggest source of nitrate exposure is dietary consumption of certain types of vegetables that are naturally high in nitrate. However, these vegetables also contain compounds that prevent the formation of NOCs.
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Okay thanks for jumping in @Joseph_Lavelle. I feel like I am going around in circles, so forgive me if this message is a bit long - I am just trying to nail this down.
I see lots of research showing that nitrates reverse metabolic syndrome, correct gut microbiome, increase longevity etc. in rats fed nitrates in their chow. Lot’s of really encouraging and positive stuff. After taking a hundred supplements, nitrates are starting to look something like a silver bullet.
I don’t have the health challenges that my husband does (he is 7 years younger than me) but always like taking my health high even higher. My husband does have specific symptoms of NO deficiency - which all of this stuff I have been doing together with him is improving.
Before taking Cialis and blocking whatever enzyme it is that decreases NO production I would like to try and up our NO by increasing our nitrate consumption. With so many complex reactions going on re NO I would like to try and imitate the pathway that has proven results.
Trying to increase our nitrate consumption has been problematic however with digestion issues, high carbs and oxalates etc.
The trial of adding sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate to our salt has worked well over the past few days in that my gut issues have calmed down, I am sleeping through the night without waking (that never usually happens) and I am feeling very satisfied after meals without feeling like I have eaten too much, which is also usually always a problem for me.
I have no idea if there are hidden dangers in what we are doing currently. I just bought the nitrates from scientific chemical supply places online. What I have read so far has encouraged me that I am on the right track.
I have the idea that us modern humans are deficient in nitrates but not only from our diet. Our water supply, swimming holes etc once would have had much nigher rates of nitrates than they do now. Blue babies were a problem with well water yes @Bicep - but my understanding is that this danger is because babies digestive system is not mature enough to be drinking this water and really should be on breastmilk at that age, and that this does not mean that nitrates are dangerous for adults.
To put it simply I wonder what they are feeding the rats in these studies? This is what I am trying to replicate.