I’ve Been A Cardiovascular Scientist For 30 Years… ED Is A Warning Sign of Heart Disease

I’ve Been A Cardiovascular Scientist For 30 Years… ED Is A Warning Sign of Heart Disease

Author Name:Sean Kim

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Title: I’ve Been A Cardiovascular Scientist For 30 Years… ED Is A Warning Sign of Heart Disease

Author Name: Sean Kim

Description: 🔔 Subscribe for new episodes:    / @seankim  
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Dr. Nathan Bryan is a nitric oxide biochemist and the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Bryan Therapeutics, with over 25 years of research and 100+ peer-reviewed papers on how the body makes this molecule. He's the author of The Secret of Nitric Oxide: Bringing the Science to Life. In this conversation, he explains how everyday habits like mouthwash, fluoride toothpaste, and antacids can quietly shut down blood flow, why erectile dysfunction can be an early warning sign of heart disease, and the daily routine he follows to protect his own vascular health.

In this episode, we discuss:
0:00 Trailer
1:48 Mouthwash and Heart Health: The Hidden Link
2:54 How Antiseptic Mouthwash Raises Blood Pressure in 7 Days
8:53 Tongue Scraping vs. Antiseptic Mouthwash
14:13 Why Fluoride-Free Toothpaste Matters for Blood Flow
15:47 What Is Nitric Oxide? The "Miracle Molecule" Explained
19:20 Why ED Is the "Canary in the Coal Mine" for Heart Disease
23:31 Testosterone, TRT, and Nitric Oxide: Which Comes First?
28:25 Daily Cialis After 40? Dr. Bryan Responds to Huberman
34:19 How to Test Your Nitric Oxide Levels
37:50 Dr. Bryan's Warning About Antacids and PPIs
42:30 Mouth Taping and Nasal Breathing for Better Blood Flow
45:54 Best Foods for Nitric Oxide (And Why Organic Falls Short)
54:43 Sauna and Cold Plunge: Boosting Blood Flow Through Hormesis
58:18 Dr. Bryan's Daily Non-Negotiables: Fasting, HIIT, and Sauna
1:01:03 Why Sugar Shuts Down Nitric Oxide Production

Learn more about Dr. Nathan Bryan here:
Website: https://n1o1.com
Bryan Therapeutics: https://bryantherapeutics.com
Instagram:   / drnathansbryan  
X: https://x.com/drnitric
LinkedIn:   / drnathansbryan  
YouTube:    / @drnathansbryannitricoxide  
Book: The Secret of Nitric Oxide: https://nathansbook.com

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Transcript:
(00:00) So, we're bathing in it, we're cooking in it, we're drinking it. It's killing the bacteria in and on our body, and it's causing human disease. >> Dr. Nathan Bryan has spent over 25 years studying how blood flow keeps us alive. And he says the products in your bathroom cabinet [music] might be shutting it down.
(00:16) He's a cardiovascular physiologist and nitric oxide researcher. And today he's breaking down why mouthwash could be raising your blood pressure. Why ant acids are quietly wrecking your heart. >> And the one molecule behind nearly everything that goes wrong as we age. >> And we just give them mouthwash for 7 days. Their blood pressure goes up.
(00:34) Ant acids are killing people. It's making people sick. These drugs should be taken off the market. They're dangerous. If you have erectile dysfunction, then you have coronary dysfunction. You have cerebral dysfunction. So we call it the canary in the coal mine. 50% of the people that are given PD5 inhibitors don't respond with better blood flow, don't respond with better erections.
(00:53) 92% of Americans are unable to utilize nitrate from their diet or from supplements [music] or beats or whatever. They get no benefit from it. So there's no money in curing or preventing. There's money in pharmarmacology, >> but it's not making anybody better. So, you spent over 25 years studying how cardiovascular works, how the blood flow works to our bodies, and you made a claim that millions of people are using a product that could potentially be hurting our hearts.
(01:26) What is the connection you found between mouthwash and our cardiovascular health? >> Yeah, it's a fascinating connection that no one's really put the pieces of the puzzle together. You know, I shouldn't say that, but going back probably a hundred years ago, it was first recognized in oral systemic link. And what these doctors recognized was that people had poor oral hygiene, they had a higher incidence of heart attack and stroke.
(01:49) And in fact, you could culture oral pathogenic bacteria in the thrombus that caused sudden cardiac death. So there was transllocation of pathogenic bacteria that became systemic through bleeding gums and then [snorts] caused inflammation. If you had a vulnerable plaque, it would cause plaque rupture and that caused heart attacks and sometimes sudden cardiac death.
(02:07) So the solution at the time was, well, let's kill all the bacterium, right? Remember this 100 years ago was long before we recognized that there was a microbiome. >> The bacteria that live in and on our body, mostly good bacteria that are doing things that we as humans can't do. So this practice has been continued on despite enormous advancements in research and understanding of the microbiome.
(02:29) So today to answer your question, we're finding that the good bacteria in the mouth are responsible for the production of nitric oxide and we and others have published that if you take normal intensive people, people with normal blood pressure and we just give them mouthwash for 7 days, their blood pressure goes up. And we've identified the bacteria that disappear, these nitric oxide producing bacteria that disappear with the use of antiseptics that lead to a decrease in nitric oxide production.
(02:54) Blood pressure goes up and you lose the protective benefits of exercise. H wow. Yeah. Because I've always thought there's a correlation between flossing and your like gum health around cardiovascular health as well. This is a separate case. >> Separate. I mean flossing is really just to remove the debris between the teeth and gum so that you don't get you remove this these food particles.
(03:18) But flossing is an antiseptic. Flossing doesn't kill bacteria. But what it does is it maintains you know good oral hygiene. But if you have disbiosis and you floss, it's not going to change the disbiosis. So people, we we've developed into a germaphobic society where we want to kill all the bacteria. I see people using still getting on the planes.
(03:38) You get an [snorts] antibacterial wash and people are sterilizing the environment. And what we're finding is that that puts you at an increased risk for infections and poor overall health. Because what we're learning is when you destroy the microbiome, and this really started with the gut microbiome.
(03:55) And today it's recognized. No one would tell you to take an antibiotic every day for the rest of your life because it destroys the gut microbiome and it causes systemic disease. But yet people are still using mouthwash. Two out of three Americans use wake up and use mouthwash every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day.
(04:12) And then you know 98% of Americans are using fluoride based toothpaste. Fluoride is the same thing. It's an antiseptic. It's killing the bacteria. And today we still have 73% of the municipalities have fluoride in the drinking water. >> So we're bathing in it. We're cooking in it. We're drinking it. It's killing the bacteria in and on our body and it's causing human disease.
(04:30) M and what is the I know this is relatively new because the whole idea of the microbiome has just been recently talked about for most uh in the past couple decades but what is the study showing in terms of the actual impact? Is there any results to show specific percentages of how much it could impact cardiovascular health? >> We're starting to tickle that out now.
(04:53) So what we start [clears throat] with is important clinical observations, right? And for me as a cardiovascular physiologist, it's always how do we maintain the integrity of the cardiovascular system and normalize blood pressure because high blood pressure is the number one driver of cardiovascular disease which is the number one killer of men and women worldwide and has been for the past hundred years.
(05:13) So our approach was how do we understand vascular nitric oxide production to where we can protect the lining of the blood vessels, maintain endothelial function and keep the arteries soft and compliant and normalize blood pressure. What we found was when you lose the ability to make nitric oxide, your arteries become stiff. They don't dilate.
(05:30) So now you got the same volume of blood going through smaller pipes. And simple physics tells us that pressure goes up. So in probably the early 2000s, it was the first observation that there was a connection between oral bacteria and nitric oxide production. And in this study, it was performed in the UK. They just took normal intensive people, gave them mouthwash, saw their blood pressure go up and the increase in blood pressure correlated with a decrease in systemic nitric oxide production.
(05:58) That was the first association. So we were working on this about the same time and then we started doing tongue scrapings to figure out okay what bacteria are responsible for the production of nitric oxide and in people who don't have these bacteria do we see an increase in blood pressure in people who have them is their blood pressure more normal and so we I believe we published this in 2014 there was a really clear association the greater the diversity in the oral microbiome the better the blood pressure people had the
(06:26) least diverse oral microbiome we couldn't culture any of these nitrate producing bacteria and their blood pressure was higher. So that was association, right? But association is not causation. And then in 2019, we conducted another study and we just took normal healthy mainly dental students, dental hygienic students, took their blood pressure, did tongue scrapings, we cultured all the bacteria in their mouth and we did a full metagenomic analysis and then we monitored their blood pressure each day as they took anic
(06:52) mouthwash. After 7 days, we almost completely sterilized their mouth. their blood pressure went up in some cases 26 millimeters of mercury. And we could identify the bacteria that disappeared when their blood pressure went up, but then 4 days after we stopped the mouthwash, their blood pressure normalized.
(07:07) And we picked up the bacteria that reappeared at the time their blood pressure normalized. So we didn't change their diet. We didn't change their exercise. They were on no medication. The only thing we did was kill the oral bacteria. And we saw dramatic changes in blood pressure. And in that 2019 paper, we basically implicated an association or a causation because the people who didn't have the right bacteria had higher blood pressure.
(07:32) And when we populated these bacteria, their blood pressure come down and because they're increasing nitric oxide production. So that was a completely new kind of paradigm especially in cardiology and vascularology because the next one was what do oral bacteria have to do with regulating blood vessel tone and blood vessel pressure? And mechanistically, we're still trying to work that out.
(07:51) But there's a clear effect of poor oral hygiene, antiseptic mouthwash, decrease nitric oxide production, increase in blood pressure, decrease in sexual function, losing the protective benefits of exercise. So to me, it's very clear. It's it's no different in the gut. If you have gut dispiosis, you develop systemic disease.
(08:09) If you have oral dispiosis, you develop systemic disease. And what we've done is really created a mechanism of action in implicating nitric oxide as the kind of the molecule that's responsible for this oral systemic link. >> So somebody's listening to this and they say, "Well, I've used mouthwash my whole life. I don't want to have bad breath.
(08:27) I've just recently started to date someone or I've lived with a partner of mine and I also use a tongue scraper." What are they supposed to do? Should they just be throwing out both of these products? Are there specific types of mouthwashes that they can continue using? What's your advice to them? >> In that 2009 publication, >> we recognized that people who did daily tongue scraping had the greatest diversity in the oral microbiome >> that did the tongue scraping >> that did the tongue scraping.
(08:55) And tongue scraping goes back thousands of years as an ayurveetic medical practice and it stood the test of time. Obviously, things that that stand the test of time typically are effective. If not, they work themselves out of societal norms. So tongue scraping is a very effective technique to improve the diversity of the oral microbiome. So that was one.
(09:12) Number two, we found that the people who did the tongue scraping and then used the aneseptic mouthwash had the greatest increase in blood pressure. The greatest. Oh, interesting. >> So tongue scrape the the conclusion of our study was tongue scraping alone is a good thing because it's almost like tilling the soil before you plant the seeds and it's improving the diversity of the oral microbiome.
(09:31) But if you're doing tongue scraping and using antiseptic mouthwash, you get more effective killing, further decrease in nitric oxide production. You see the most dramatic effect of an increase in blood pressure. >> Interesting. So, one one of these could be great, but then if you combine this thing, so it just shows you all types of mouthwashes are bad or are the alcohol-free ones? >> Well, I think that's a very important delineation because what we look at is aniseptic because we we're interested in specific bacteria. So if it says
(10:00) antiseptic mouthwash then it's clear it's antiseptic. It's killing all the bacteria not just the pathogens. It's killing the good bacteria. What we don't know is you know alcohol based mouthwash are antiseptic. Alcohol kills bacteria. So alcohol based mouthwash chemical based mouthwash like chlorhexodine lististerine scope all those are antiseptic antibacterial.
(10:21) In fact they advertise this. It kills 99.99% of the bacteria. And I can't believe they're still advertising this. They're thinking this >> most people don't know. Oh, this is why conversations like this are so important. >> And so what we don't know is the effects of other mouthwashes or mouth rinses that aren't antiseptic, you know, like oil pulling, you know, is an ancient practice I think still has some important therapeutic benefits, but like essential oils, things like that, other kind of non that aren't antiseptic mouth
(10:47) rinses, we just don't know. We've never done the studies. But here's what's clear. What we're trying to figure out is because we culture these bacteria, we know what conditions they like. So for me, it's always how do we create an environment in the oral cavity where these good bacteria can repopulate. And what we're also finding is if you have a good healthy oral microbiome, you have less oral disease, less pathogens.
(11:11) Because if you think about it, the good bacteria are the police on the bad bacteria. But if you got a strong healthy microbiome, you're less resistant to infections, whether it's oral infections or systemic infections. It's when you start to disrupt the microbiome that these opportunistic pathogenic bacteria can take hold and make you sick.
(11:30) So, how do we create an internal environment? For me, it's in the oral cavity where it starts that allow for the the population of the good bacteria which then keep the pathogens at bay. And so, for 20 years, we've tried to identify what are the culturing conditions. And so, how do we create that in the mouth? And so what we're finding is we've got a normalized salivary pH because pathogens only grow in acidic conditions.
(11:52) Carries causing cavity causing bacteria. The bacteria that cause perodonal disease and gingivitis, they love low low pH acid environments. The good bacteria don't like that. So if we can adjust the pH, put prebiotics, create conditions where the good bacteria can grow and populate, then the back bad bacteria can't grow because almost all pathogenic bacteria are sensitive to nitric oxide.
(12:13) Your immune system makes it. It binds to the iron sulfur centers of the respiratory system and it shuts down the respiration. That's how nitric oxide kills bacteria. So if we repopulate the good bacteria, we create an environment that's conducive to that and the pathogens can't survive. And that is really I think going to have a profound impact on public health because if we can start to understand this and create conditions through a toothpaste or mouth rinse that creates an environment conducive for good oral microbiome and
(12:38) not killing it, then that's going to it's a game changer. Would you say the ideal dental hygiene practice for somebody that wants to have clean teeth, good breath, and also not kill all the bad bacteria so that they can maintain their blood flow is to use a fluoride-free toothpaste and then afterwards or before use a tongue scraper but just don't bother using mouthwash.
(13:02) Is there anything else that they should incorporate? >> What you eat is extremely important because right has a resident time in the mouth. So high sugar, high carbohydrate meals lower the pH of the saliva and it creates an environment where cavities, the bad bacteria can grow and flourish. So it's a lot of things, but I think the most important thing that we're finding is we have to support the microbiome.
(13:25) We can't kill it. So to answer your question, what we've done is and I've been using a non-fllorated toothpaste for probably 25 years when I first >> Wow. >> Where are the dangers? >> Out of the curve. Now it's like a trend. >> Yeah. But no, but then I was using these non-flloridated toothpaste and I'd go to the dentist, I do tongue scrapings, you know, when I was still in in academia and we would do tongue scrapings, but I didn't seem to have an optimal microbiome.
(13:49) And I go, look, I'm doing I think all the right things. And I look at the toothpaste that I'm using. It's got detergents in it that break down bofilms. It's like, well, maybe that's the problem. So, a couple of years ago, I created a nitric oxide microbiome friendly toothpaste. It's obviously nonfuidated. It's hydroxyappatite based, but we create conditions where the good bacteria can grow and prosper.
(14:10) And so now what we're finding is that if you brush your teeth with my new toothpaste called breath of life, that it create it changes the environment of the oral cavity. And now we're seeing the people who had high blood pressure that was unmanaged with prescription medication. When they get rid of fluoride toothpaste, change to our toothpaste and stop using mouthwash, the good bacteria repopulate, they improve their nitric oxide production, and their blood pressure comes down.
(14:36) And now, for the first time in the history of Western medicine, you can have a conversation with your physician. How do you get how are you going to get me off these medications? Because if we give the body what it needs, remove from the body what it doesn't need, there's no need for prescription medication. Now, we're starting to get people off prescription high blood pressure medicine because we're targeting the bacteria that are producing nitric oxide, dilating the blood vessels, and there's no need for blood pressure medicine.
(14:58) >> Yeah, I want to take a small step back because we mentioned the word nitric oxide a few times here, but some people may not have heard of it or know what it is. What is nitric oxide and why is it often called the miracle molecule? >> Well, nitric oxide is a gas. It's produced in the lining of the blood vessels.
(15:15) It's produced in the oral cavity through these bacteria. It's produced in the stomach when we swallow our saliva. But it regulates vasoddilation. So it means it dilates the blood vessels. So it regulates blood flow and oxygen delivery to every organ, tissue and cell in the body. It mobilizes our own stem cells so we can repair and replace dysfunctional cells.
(15:34) It activates the efficiency of the mitochondria, the energy producing organels of the cell. It prevents the ends of our chromosomes from getting shorter. So it extends lifespan. So this one molecule regulates everything we know about human optimization, disease prevention and longevity. And so our focus was I guess going almost 30 years ago was how does the human body make nitric oxide? What leads to a loss of its production? Then how do we restore it? So when you know you you call it a miracle molecule and in 1998 a Nobel
(16:02) prize was awarded for the discovery of nitric oxide and it then it was considered a miracle molecule because this one molecule this very simple gas regulates so many different biological functions and so a miracle implies that you don't have a scientific explanation for its actions. But today we we have a mechanism for everything that nitric oxide is and does in the human body.
(16:26) We can explain it through signal transduction. how it's affecting protein structure and function. So for for for me it's not a miracle. It's not a miracle molecule. It may seem to do miraculous things, but a miracle it's not a miracle in the fact that we understand how it works, how it's produced, when it's produced, where does it go, what does it become, and how does it signal? We have a clear understanding of that.
(16:48) M and for for people that are um in their 30s and 40s and 50s, they're noticeably at this point noticing that certain blood flow parts of their brain or body parts just not functioning as as well. >> Why does blood flow and nitric oxygen decrease as we get older? >> Well, we have to look at how the human body makes nitric oxide.
(17:08) So, there's two primary pathways. There's the enzyme in the lining of the blood vessels that regulates the second to second blood vessel tone and then as we discussed there's oral bacteria that do it. So when we look at kind of age related studies the function of the enzyme decreases with age and this is due to you know mainly diet and lifestyle poor diet lack of physical activity use of ant acids for example u smoking all the all the cardiovascular risk factors we know of lead to a stepwise reduction in nitric oxide production by that enzyme.
(17:40) So we had to understand what leads to NOS unconoupling that nitric oxide synthes enzyme which makes it dysfunctional and so just in population based studies where you take people from you know 20 to 30 30 to 40 each decade we see this kind of stepwise decline in nitric oxide [snorts] but that's in the average population but you know we see people the outliers the 20 year olds have the vascular age of a 60-y old then you got people like me who are 52 that have a vascular age of a 29 >> year old >> because we know how maintain the
(18:10) function of the NOS enzyme, keep it active to where we don't lose this production of nitric oxide or lose the function of the enzyme. But what we're finding is when you when that enzyme becomes dysfunctional, we call it endothelial dysfunction, then you can't regulate blood flow to different organs upon demand.
(18:27) And the first sign and symptom is always erectile dysfunction because if you can't dilate the blood vessels of the sex organs, you can get an erection. That's in both men and women. If you can't dilate the blood vessels to the prefrontal cortex when you're trying to recall where you left your keys or memory, then you lose your memory.
(18:45) Mild cognitive impairment and then it develops into dementia, eventually Alzheimer's. And if you can't dilate the blood vessels of the heart when you start to exercise, you can't maintain an exercise regimen because your heart's not getting enough oxygen to maintain the contractility. So you'll get short of breath, maybe chest chest tightening and maybe even chest pain called anga.
(19:04) But it's all about regulation of blood flow and oxygen nutrient delivery upon demand to every organ, tissue, and cell in the body. And that's really at the end of the day, that's what nitric oxide does. >> Yeah, I've heard that ED particularly obviously for men is the first sign that most people will see. It tells a story of what is happening around your heart, your brain, and the rest of your body.
(19:24) Why is it that down there is the first sign that you feel and see? Well, because again, it's all about regulation of blood flow. So, when we're not using something, we don't peruse it, right? So, when we're running a marathon, we basically shut down blood flow to the gut and to the kidneys because we're not using those organs.
(19:45) We we need our skeletal muscle, our lungs, and the uh the heart. So, when we're about to engage in sexual activity, we have to increase blood flow to the sex organs, and that's regulated by nitric oxide. So if you if the blood vessels can't make nitric oxide or the nerves that intervate the penis for example can't make nitric oxide then you don't get vasoddilation you don't get engorgment and we develop erectile dysfunction but it's not unique to that vascular bed.
(20:09) If you have erectile dysfunction then you have coronary dysfunction you have cerebral dysfunction because if the blood vessels of the sex organs can't make nitric oxide then you're not making nitric oxide in any vascular bed. So we call it the canary in the coal mine because people recognize that because it's not just socially inconvenient.
(20:27) It's a sign and symptom of the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease. >> We have to be able to regulate blood flow and oxygen delivery to every organ, tissue, and cell in the body. >> Interesting. So it's all connected >> that this shows up first. So without seeing a doctor or someone that's perhaps in their 30s that thinks that they don't need to go and get some sort of cardiovascular disease, this tells a story.
(20:49) It tells a story >> much earlier on >> because you can us men we can tell we can determine the quality of the erection >> right so a good firm erection we know that if it's mildly dysfunctional you don't get that quality erection and you know it and your partner knows it >> and so why is that it's because there's something wrong in that vascular bed that you're not able to make nitric oxides you don't get dilation you don't get optimal engorgment >> but the same thing if we want to think and perform highly as an executive or we want to be an athlete and dilate
(21:20) the blood vessels of the pulmonary arteries or the coronary arteries and we can't make nitric oxide then we're compromised in our ability to perform. So we look at sexual performance as the canary in the coal mine for cardiovascular performance, executive performance, physical performance and for me that's it's all about performance.
(21:37) How well can we deliver oxygen to individual cells and how well can those cells turn oxygen into cellular energy or ATP? >> Yeah, >> every step in that process is determined by nitric oxide. And for a man listening, how do they tell the difference between something that could be a vascular issue versus, you know, like an anxiety or performance issue that happens? >> Well, look, there are certainly many contributing factors to optimal performance with sexual performance.
(22:01) I mean, it could be hormones, right? >> I mean, if you got low testosterone, testosterone activates nitric oxide production. Less testosterone, less nitric oxide. >> It could be an anxiety issue and just nervousness or anxiety that, you know, you got a cortisol and, you know, stress response.
(22:17) then your body's is in survival mode. It's not in, you know, procreativity. >> Yeah. >> You know, so we have to focus on getting a full clinical picture. But in men typically, it's typically a vascular problem. If we can fix the vascular nitric oxide production, we can maintain vaso reactivity and dilation and normal sexual function.
(22:37) Obviously, optimizing testosterone and other hormones is beneficial. But typically, if you just restore the production of nitric oxide, then you see an improvement. So, is there a correlation or connection between testosterone and our nitric production as well? And which one feeds the >> It's a two-way street. And same thing with estrogen in women, >> especially in andropause or in menopause in women because both estrogen and testosterone stimulate nitric oxide production.
(23:06) But when we get low in testosterone or women can't make estrogen, then you lose the natural activation and stimulation of nitric oxide. But here's the kicker. the enzyme becomes dysfunctional with age as we discussed. So in men who are giving getting testosterone replacement therapy or TRT but they don't recouple the enzyme the NOS enzyme then they lose the cardoprotective benefits of hormone replacement therapy.
(23:30) Same thing in women postmenopausal women who are getting hormone replacement therapy. If we don't focus on restoring the function of the enzyme then you can activate or stimulate till the cows come home but the enzyme isn't working. It's not going to make nitric oxide. So then you're only getting part of the clinical benefit of hormone replacement therapy.
(23:45) We got to focus on nitric oxide. So now your body's actually producing nitric oxide naturally by the stimulation by estrogen or testosterone. >> So what most guys in particular think about when it comes to sexual performance and all these things and they think about testosterone and getting on either TRT or taking supplements or whatever it might be to increase testosterone.
(24:08) It could actually just be a blood flow issue in most cases and trying to figure out ways to increase your nitric oxygen production could be the the lead domino. You're saying >> that's right. Yeah, it certainly is the lead domino because everything that nitric oxide is and does, it's like that first domino.
(24:24) You knock that first domino over, everything else kind of it's signal transduction. But if you don't first fix that and you just get hormone replacement therapy, testosterone or estrogen, but you don't fix the nitric oxide production, then you're losing all that upstream effect and you basic you basically bypass all the cardrotective benefits of nitric oxide.
(24:46) So what I tell people is if you're having, you know, elevation in blood pressure or, you know, not optimal erectile function, then I always ask, do you use a fluoride toothpaste? Do you use mouthwash? Is there fluoride in your drinking water? Do you use ant acids? And are you eating a high sugar, high carbohydrate meal? When they answer those five questions and say, "Okay, eliminate it.
(25:07) " Then we're seeing their nitrog They released the brakes on their body's ability to make nitric oxide naturally. Their blood pressure normalized, their sexual function improves. And it's just understanding all these things that we do on a daily basis. They're inhibiting the natural production of this foundational molecule. >> Yeah. >> So for me, it's always about diet and lifestyle. Change your diet.
(25:24) Change your lifestyle. Stop doing the things that disrupt nitric oxide production. Start doing the things that promote it and activate it. And that fixes a lot of problems. >> For women listening to this that obviously don't have as visible of a signal that men do with ED, what are some early signs that they can look out for to tell the story beforehand before any particular cardiovascular disease that's more serious? >> Well, it's the same thing.
(25:52) I mean when we look at the hemodynamics of female orgasms to for women to come have an orgasm they've got to get an increase in pressure in the clitoris and in the labia and that pressure comes from an increase in volume of blood and the volume of blood comes from an increase in nitric oxide production. So if they become an orgasmic, can't reach orgasm or their libido decreases or there's vaginal dryness or painful intercourse, it's typically a vascular problem because again you have to dilate the blood vessels to increase the volume,
(26:20) increase the pressure and that's the site, that's the time of orgasm. So I think to answer your question, it's low libido, you know, vaginal dryness, unable to reach orgasm. Those are problems and they have to be addressed accordingly. And it goes back to the same questions. Is it anxiety? Is it hormonal? Is it vascular? Is it, you know, social, personal? Um, is there chemistry? Is there not chemistry? All those things have to be addressed.
(26:47) >> I mean, men are somewhat simple organisms, right? We just increase blood flow and get an erection. >> Yeah. >> Women, you got to optimize hormones. They need a leadin time. There's a lot of foreplay involved. And their response takes a little bit longer than the response in men. And I think that's the importance of the communication between partners is what do you need? what do I need? And then address those.
(27:08) Then if you're still having problems, then it's probably a vascular issue. >> Yeah. I mean, it is it is more complicated for a woman because the whole idea of having an orgasm, it's not necessarily could be a bullet load issue. Some people have trauma, they have performance issues, things that have come up where other things are working well, but it's just that last part they can't really get there.
(27:27) So, it is a bit of a more complicated story, but that is a good signal for someone to pay attention to and >> find patterns, I guess, ultimately. I want to read um what Huberman, Andrew Huberman said recommended and I want to get your thoughts on this. He was on a show and he recommended that almost every male 40 and older should be taking 2.
(27:51) 5 to 5 milligs of daily seialis or tadalapil not necessarily for ED >> but to improve facadilation, blood pressure and um heart blood flow as well. What is your immediate thought when you hear that? >> I think it's probably a sound recommendation because of the known effects of PD5 inhibition. So we're finding that the lowd dose PD5 inhibitors the tadalapil sealis protects from Alzheimer's.
(28:19) It protected people from getting COVID. And so there's there's improvements in blood flow. But what people don't recognize is or understand is how these drugs work. PD5 inhibitors are dependent upon the body's ability to make nitric oxide. And here's my critique of that statement and Hubberman should know this. 50% of the people that are given PD5 inhibitors whether it's Viagra, Seialis, or Levitra or these other PD5 inhibitors don't respond with better blood flow, don't don't respond with better erections.
(28:48) And why is that? Why do 50% of the people that are given these drugs since 1998 don't respond? And because mechanistically you need nitric oxide to activate the second messenger cyclic GMP cyclic GMP is what releases calcium inside the cell leads to smooth muscle relaxation and vasoddilation without nitric o and then there's an enzyme called phosphodestase that degrades cyclic GMP.
(29:12) So if you give a phosphodestrase inhibitor you prevent the breakdown of the second messenger. Well where does the second messenger come from? It's dependent upon nitric oxide production. So without nitric oxide there's no increase in cyclic GMP. without cyclic GMP PD5 inhibitors don't work and we've known this since 19 the late 90s.
(29:31) So that told us even almost 30 years ago erectile dysfunction is a symptom of nitric oxide deficiency. It's not a condition of overactive phosphodestase inhibition or phosphodestase activity because if it was that 100% of the people would respond 50%. Wow. So $5 billion a year from PD5 inhibitors and yet 50% of the people get no clinical benefit from it.
(29:55) >> My response to that statement is that you improve nitric oxide production. If you improve nitric oxide production, you improve cyclic GMP activation, you improve aodilation without needing to inhibit a phosphodestrase enzyme. >> Yeah. I mean are there downsides to taking something like stylus because I mean also the negative perception that you know let's say someone in their 40s taking it immediately people think oh there's there's an issue there right there's this negative perception that comes with same with Viagra even though
(30:24) Viagra was originally created for in China what are the downsides that come with that and should that even or do the potential upsides generally outweigh the downsides there >> for me that's the conversation I always have what's the risk versus benefit what benefit is providing at what risk And with all drug therapy, it's always it's dose dependent.
(30:44) >> Obviously, the higher you go, the higher risk there is from an unsafe drop in blood pressure. Um, you get the blue vision, you get, you know, a lot of you can even get, you know, 4hour erections that lead to necrosis. Then you lose your organ, right? Most people think four-hour erection is a good thing.
(30:58) No, it's it's not a good thing. It's a dangerous thing. But I think what the clinical data tell us is that lowd dose PD5 inhibition offers confers some level of protection from cardiovascular disease, pulmonary hypertension, dementia, Alzheimer's, but it's still a drug. It's a synthetic compound that's inhibiting a natural biochemical reaction.
(31:18) And when you do that, there's always side effects. And these side effects may not show up in the first month, first year, first five years. But chronically taking these in clinical studies for drug therapy, you never look at long-term clinical. They're never 20, 30 year studies. >> You look at short term. So all these side effects that are never revealed in the FDA clinical studies reveal themselves years down the road, decades.
(31:42) Then people have been on this a lot of times there's irreversible damage. >> So my philosophy is always let's understand the signal transduction. What goes wrong in people who can't get an optimal erection, who have an elevation in blood pressure, have pulmonary hypertension, and then let's fix the signal transduction.
(31:57) Give the body what it needs. remove from the body what it doesn't need. Let the body do its job. And that's where medicine has gone so wrong, right? >> They want to take a a symptom that manifests from a disease and then inhibit the body's response to inhibit that symptom. >> But the symptom is the body telling us that something's wrong.
(32:14) It's the body's natural response to an insult or injury. And when you inhibit that, like inhibiting fever, if you have an infection, giving an antipiritic like Tylenol, you don't want to suppress fever. That's how the body kills the infection. And so the same this in the same philosophy is through all drug therapy.
(32:33) You know if you see you know give a drug that inhibits the breakdown of cyclic GMP why not fix the underlying problem why not address the root cause because that's very simple today we know how to restore nitric oxide production then everything else works as designed. >> Yeah it's like putting a band-aid to a solution that could potentially rupt off at any moment.
(32:50) No, but look, there's enormous there's it's a multi- trillion dollar industry. And so drug companies have figured out just like any for-profit company. How do you get as many customers as you can and keep those customers as long as you can? And drug companies are the best in the world in the history of the world. >> Yeah. >> So there's no money in curing or preventing or what we call restorative physiology.
(33:13) There's money in pharmarmacology, >> but it's not making anybody better >> because you mentioned 50% of the people that are taking these these medications react to it because they may not have enough nitric oxygenic production. For someone listening that may be thinking about taking something, how do they even know if they have enough, you know, like how do you measure that and actually assess for yourself? It's been a major challenge and problem clinically for more than 30 years because like if you want to know what your vitamin D is or triglycerides or
(33:46) cholesterol, we just go, we draw blood, send it off to the lab, you get a number. Oh, if it's low, well then you treat to effect or treat a number. But because nitric oxide when it's produced in the body is gone in less than a second, we can't pull it. I mean, we've done this for 30 years in the research lab.
(34:02) We can draw blood and look at relevant metabolites, but it's not used clinically. So what there's the only true way to do it is through these FDA cleared medical devices. It's called flow mediated dialotation is the response. So what we do is we olude blood flow to the brachial artery for 5 minutes. So you put a blood pressure cuff on pump it up really high to where there's no inflow into the bracular artery for 5 minutes.
(34:24) Then you release the cuff and then with an ultrasound you can look at the dilation of the downstream blood vessels >> and if that blood vessel responds with and it dilates then it's making nitric oxide. If it doesn't dilate in response to that hyperemia then your your blood vessels aren't making any nitric oxide.
(34:43) Now there's algorithms there we can assess like of endothelial function score based on that but it's a functional measurement and that's really the only true way to measure functional nitric oxide production but we we rely on symptoms you know ED as we discussed is first then if your blood pressure goes up you're nitric oxide deficient then develop metabolic disease insulin resistance diabetes then develop exercise intolerance angulum and then the end stage of chronic nitric oxide deficiency is Alzheimer's >> what about things like Um, if you have
(35:13) cold hands or cold feet or you have certain injuries or scars, but they take a lot longer to heal than most other people around your age. Is that a kind of a highle signal also? That's that's credible. >> It is. There's a lot of overlap with thyroid function because your thyroid hormone sets your basil metabolic rate, but at the end of the day, if you've got cold hands and cold feet, it's a microvascular issue, right? You're not being able to profuse the digits in the smallest blood vessels. So rather than a
(35:42) macrovascular issue like high blood pressure for example, you've got a microvascular issue, cold hands, cold feet. But if you wake up in the morning, your blood your your basil temperature is less than 98, then that's a thyroid issue. That's diagnostic for hypothyroidism. And I don't give a damn what your TSH is, T4, T3.
(36:00) If your temperature is low in the morning, you've got a thyroid problem. >> And nitric oxide is not going to fix a thyroid problem. That's separate. But certainly if you have hypothyroidism then you're going to have microvascular dysfunction and probably nitric oxide deficiency. But one can fix the other. Fixing your thyroid is not going to fix your nitric oxide.
(36:19) Fix your nitric oxide is not going to fix your thyroid. So there's still some benefit in you know this kind of siloed medicine of fixing individual hormones. But for us the foundation is fixing nitric oxide production because until you do that nothing else is going to work or will be optimized. >> Yeah.
(36:37) So, it seems like it's really important to think about when we talked about mouthwash. That's kind of the the elephant in the room that millions of people are using today, but what are some other common habits or routines that people are doing every day that are decreasing nitric nitric oxide? >> The most dangerous thing that most people are doing without their them knowing is ant acids.
(37:01) What we call proton pump inhibitors. These are PPIs are pyloc, previsid, nexium. The prescription drugs are merazol, pentopresol. These drugs were only FDA approved for the acute use during gastroosophageial reflux disease. So if you get acid reflux, you take these drugs for 3 to 5 days and then it suppresses stomach acid production and it it works pretty well for reflux.
(37:28) But yet today, you don't even have to have a prescription for these drugs. You can get them over the counter. And many people have been taking these drugs for 5, 10, 15, 20 years >> just because they have stomach issues in general. >> Just have stomach issues >> because they maybe they're eating a poor diet.
(37:43) They're eating late at night, lying down, they get reflux, maybe have a hernia, but it's it's a band-aid. It's not fixing the problem. So in 2015 there was a group out of Methodist in Houston that mined these data fields and they took it was tens of thousands of patients and they did age match controls people who had been on proton pump inhibitors for at least three years 3 to 5 years versus those that didn't.
(38:06) What they found was that the people who were on the PPIs had about a 40% higher incidence of heart attack and stroke and then so again you take a clinical observation indisputable now how is this happening what they found the PPIs are leading to an increase in asymmetric dimethylarginine which is an inhibitor of nitric oxide production in the lining of the blood vessels and when we swallow our saliva we need stomach acid to make nitric oxide in the stomach.
(38:30) So this single class of drugs, the proton pump inhibitors are completely shutting down nitric oxide production through both pathways. So when you do this every day for years, completely devoid of nitric oxide, you get high blood pressure. If you have vulnerable plaque, the plaque ruptures, you have a heart attack and stroke.
(38:46) And then couple years later, it was revealed that it's about a 40% increase in Alzheimer's and dementia in that same patient population who takes proton pump inhibitors. And yet these drugs are still on the market. Uh, if anyone would read the package insert in these, no one in their right mind would take them because the package insert is about this long of a lot of fine print.
(39:08) It causes hip fractures. It causes um, you know, H. pylori infection. It's causing kidney disease, osteoporosis. you can't absorb B vitamins, you can't absorb calcium, can't absorb iron, can't absorb uh selenium, chromium, iodine, and you're developing autoimmune disease because without stomach acid, you can't break down proteins into amino acids.
(39:30) Without stomach acid, we get peptide fragments absorbed across the gut. Our body develops an immune response to it, seizes an antigen, develop autoimmune disease. It's kind of ironic because I've taken ant acids for like 5 days because I had gastritis issues like four or five years ago and I the issue that I was really concerned about was that I might have H palori because it's a common side effect of it.
(39:53) But you're saying taking the ant acids actually may increase the chance of the thing that I was trying to avoid in the first place. >> That's exactly right. H pylori is a bacteria that's sensitive to acid. So if you can't make stomach acid, you become susceptible to H. palary infections and then the ulcerations and then what happens they give you an ant acid because the ulcerations or they think they're from acid erosion when it's just the bacterial infection I mean a Nobel prize was awarded for this I believe in the '9s the guys out of Australia
(40:21) inoculated themselves with H pylori and developed gastric ulcers >> is Pepto-Bismol is that considered an ant acid the things that were feeding kids >> there's different classes so what what we're interested in are the ones that are most dangerous are proton pump inhibitors PPIs these are the drugs that are inhibiting the polyoric cells from making hydrochloric acid.
(40:38) It's a biochemical reaction. Then you've got things like the H2 antagonist. And then you've got buffers, things like bismas, you know, that buffer that coat the lining of the stomach. And you got things like Tums and Rolades with which are magnesium and calcium carbonate. So it's buffering the acid. It's not inhibiting acid production.
(40:59) It's a buffering. And that on occasions may be fine because you're not inhibiting the natural production of stomach acid. So if you have reflux, pop a Tums or take some sodium bicarbonate and baking powder, baking soda, and neutralize the acid, but never never inhibit the body's production of stomach acid. >> Bad things happen.
(41:19) >> What about some other things like sleep hygiene and the way we're actually breathing throughout the night? How much of an impact does that have? Like we've had James Nesteron who swears by using mouth tape because the way we breathe through our nose has a filtration system that's been designed to you know filter all of these things that are pollutants.
(41:40) How much of an impact does that have >> uh something like using mouth tape or just being more conscious of how we breathing at night? >> No, it's huge. I think it's probably one of the most overlooked things of human health. >> The mouth is part of the digestive system. It's not part of our respiratory system.
(41:58) The nose is our respiratory system. So the highest you we talked about the enzyme in the lining of the blood vessels. Actually the highest concentration of that nitric oxide synthes enzyme is in our upper airways in the epithelial cells. So when we do nasal breathing, [snorts] deep breathing, it's activating these mechano receptors turning nitric oxide on and it delivers nitric oxide gas to the lower airways, dilates the pulmonary arteries, dilates the bronchios and we get better oxygenation.
(42:24) We can match ventilation to profusion. All regions of the lung are being profused. good oxygen exchange, good oxygen uptake. And that explains why nasal breathing and deep breathing can lower blood pressure. Clear clinical benefit. But if we're breathing through our mouth, not only are we bypassing this natural nitric oxide production pathway, we're fully oxygenating the mouth, changing the oral microbiome, decreasing salivary pH, causing dispiosis, shutting down nitric oxide production.
(42:51) And we don't oxygenate at night. And when we oxygenate at night, it releases nitric oxide. Nitric oxide mobilizes stem cells. So at night when we're sleeping, we're repairing and replacing dysfunctional cells. But if we're not oxygenating because we're doing mouth breathing, we don't make nitric oxide. We wake up tired. We don't feel repaired because we can't repair because there's no stem cells because there's no nitric oxide.
(43:12) So it goes back to this, you know, everything's connected and it's about how do we fully oxygenate? How do we deliver oxygen to individual cells? How do we make those cells make ATP from the oxygen to allow the body to do what it's designed to do? >> Yeah, just more specifics there. Do you think mouth tape is better or nasal sprays? >> I think it depends upon the anatomy.
(43:32) I mean, if you've got an airway obstruction, I don't think it's a good idea to do mouth taping because you've got a you've got an anatomical physical obstruction. So, I do mouth taping at night. I'm not a mouth breather, but sometimes I I'll put a like a snore I got a Snorl or app on my phone. >> And some nights when I travel to different areas, whether it's, you know, humid where I live in Texas to Arizona or some drier places, then I'll notice I'll hear some slight purring.
(44:00) I don't necessarily snore, but on those nights, I'll do mouth taping because maybe it's coming because I'm maybe dehydrated >> even at altitude. But I do that and I find I wake up better. I don't wear any devices. cuz I don't need an app to tell me if I slept good or not. I know when I wake up [laughter] if I had a good night's sleep.
(44:16) >> But I think if you go to an airway specialist and ensure that you have an open airway that if you do tape your mouth, you're still able to breathe and move oxygen and move air, then I think it's a very good idea. >> We've talked a lot about what are the things that could potentially decrease, you know, what are some ways that we could increase it? We can start with food.
(44:40) What are some superfoods that boost nitric oxide? >> That's probably one of the most common questions I get and it's it's a very difficult question to answer because in 2015 we tried to answer this question. We know that you need at least 300 to 400 milligrams of nitrate to activate nitric oxide production through this bacteria stomach acid cycle because it's inefficient by design.
(45:03) So we need a minimum of 300 400 milligrams of nitrate. So in 2015, we went to five cities across the US. We came here to LA, Chicago, New York, Dallas, and Raleigh, and we bought same vegetables from the same resale grocery. We brought it back to my lab, ground them up, analyzed them, and found that there's about a 50 to 100fold difference in the nitrate content of celery in New York versus celery in LA or Dallas.
(45:28) >> Whoa. So if you lived in Dallas or Los Angeles, you could eat four to five stocks of celery, get enough nitrate, if you had the right bacteria, stomach acid, produce nitric oxide, and normalize your blood pressure. If you lived in New York, you'd have to eat 60 or 70 stalks of celery. >> What is the what is causing all the difference? >> Well, it's that it's the growth season.
(45:44) It's the amount of lightning storms. It's how much nitrogen is in the soil that the plants can assimilate into nitrate. It's whether there's organic versus conventional because organic, you can't add nitrogen to the fertilizer. You can't add nitrogen fertilizer to the soil. So organically grown vegetables have way less nitrate than conventionally grown >> really despite them being like twice the price for most organically grown vegetables are completely nutrient depleted.
(46:10) You need nitrogen to assimilate other vitamins and minerals. >> So organic is a scam. >> I don't think it's look it's a problem because organic is good because you're not getting exposed to herbicides or pesticides or chemicals on your food. But because of the restrictions of nitrogen in the soil and not able to add nitrogen based fert standardized nitrogen then they become nitrogen depleted they become nutrient depleted so you can't eat enough organic vegetables to get enough nitrate to manage your blood pressure.
(46:39) So what I do the solution is grow your own vegetables. I mean for me I live in Texas on 800 acres and I do soil analysis. Take my soil I send it to the USDA office. They give me analysis, figure out what's missing, and I fertilize based on I repe what's missing. And then what I grow and what I eat is not considered organic because I add nitrogen based fertilizers to the soil and replete the pot ash and the phosphorus and the sulfur, but I don't put herbicides or pesticides on my food.
(47:04) >> Yeah. For people that aren't able to grow their own food, they live in New York or big cities or they just can't afford it, what do they choose from? because there's the dangers and the toxicity of pesticides and the things that people are spraying the chemicals and then you have the miracle molecule that's supposed to create life and blood flow to >> your issues with ED and heart problems that you're not getting from vegetables which people are telling us to eat.
(47:33) >> How as a consumer do you choose between the two evils? >> You have to go support your local farmers. Even in the big cities, there's farmers markets. And go and ask the questions. What's what practices do you use? You use regenerative farming? Do you use compost? You use nitrogen? What's the how do we know that you do use soil analysis in your fields to know that these are nutrient-dense foods? But yet, are you putting herbicides on? Are there genetically modified that they're spraying? They can survive the Roundup
(48:00) and the other herbicides. So th those are the questions you have to ask. But, you know, eat local, support your local growers, and just ask questions. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a tricky place to be in. No, >> it [laughter] is. >> It's a tricky place to be in, huh? >> Because we've been conditioned >> to eat organic, and most people don't even know what the hell organic is.
(48:20) We just It's a It's this thing that people, oh, well, I eat organic, >> right? >> Right. Right. It's like a premium status thing. >> Yeah. >> Like the halo effect. Beyond vegetables, are there other foods or things that we can supplements that we can take that can counteract the fact if you eat organic that there's not going to be as much N in there? >> Yeah.
(48:42) You know, that's that's kind of the path I've been on for the past 25 years once because it's very difficult, almost impossible to support nitric oxide production from diet alone because again, depending upon where you live, what vegetables you're eating, how much nitrate are you getting, and then two, with 76% of the municipalities having fluoride in the drinking water, most people don't have the right bacteria to even if they eat the right food with sufficient nitrate.
(49:09) Nitrate is inert in humans. Humans cannot metabolize this enzyme. So if there's fluoride in the drinking water, they're using a fluoride toothpaste, and they're using antiseptics, you can eat a straight vegan vegetarian diet and get zero nitric oxide benefit from that diet because you're you don't have the bacteria to metabolize it.
(49:28) Then two, you need stomach acid to complete this cycle. So two out of three Americans use mouthwash. Two out of three Americans use anep or ant acids. 200 million prescriptions written for ant acids. Three out of four Americans report using an ant acid over the counter. That leaves us with my best estimation about 92% of Americans are unable to utilize nitrate from their diet or from supplements or beets or whatever.
(49:51) They get no benefit from it. >> So the biggest thing they can do is just remove the things that are killing. That's the that's the very first thing is stop doing the things that inhibiting natural production of nitric oxide >> because that's what we want to do. We want to give the body what it needs so the body can do its job.
(50:08) But that also requires us removing from the body what it doesn't need that's inhibiting the natural production. >> So I tell people it's fluoride. You have to get rid of fluoride. You have to stop killing the oral microbiome every day with antiseptic mouthwash. And then if you're on an ant acid, you must stop. Ant acids are killing people.
(50:24) It's making people sick and you must stop. These drugs should be taken off the market. They're dangerous. You know, Vio and Celre 25 years ago were taken off the market blackbox warning because they cause a heart attack and stroke. Proton pumps are even more dangerous than those.
(50:39) And yet these companies are still selling, still seem advertised. A lot of the cable guys out there saying, "I take my Palace OTC every day. If you want to look like him, maybe you should, >> but no, it's it's very dangerous." And then stop eating sugar, you know, and stop getting your supplements from gummies and chews.
(50:56) Now, what is gummies and chews? It's seed oil and sugar or glycerin. When you chew, it changes the microbiome, lowers salivary pH, and perpetuates this dispiosis. It's causing chronic disease. >> Yeah. I've seen that there's been this rise of extremely healthy 25 to 30y old kids. I think LeBron James son had a heart attack. >> Yeah.
(51:18) >> Like a super athlete. And I wonder if there is some story to be told in terms of the correlation between all of the rise of ant acids and the foods in our system, the fluoride that's causing this mysterious thing because nobody can figure it out. It's like, why are these healthy kids? Well, they're not asking the right questions.
(51:35) >> Right. >> Right. If you don't ask the right questions, you're never going to get the right answer. So, the question I would ask, is he using mouthwash? Does he take in acids? He's using fluoride toothpaste and do, you know, functional vascular measurements. This FMD, see what his nitric oxide, functional nitric oxide capacity is.
(51:55) Obviously, he's a well-trained athlete. He's got good cardio metabolic function or he wouldn't be able to run up and down a basketball court for three hours at a time. But those are the questions that people have never put together on the microbiome, antibiotics. You there's so many contributing factors. But here's what we know.
(52:13) The entire process for the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, and stroke can be explained by nitric oxide. So if your blood vessels make sufficient nitric oxide, it downregulates the adhesion molecules. You don't get any plaque deposition, plaque instability or plaque rupture. So when you lose the when the blood vessels lose the ability to produce nitric oxide, that sets the stage.
(52:33) Now for everything we know about the onset and progression you get an upregulation of adhesion molecules monocytes neutrfils platelet stick they migrate through they elicit an immune response you get foam cells smooth muscle hyperlasia you get an obstruction in the lining of the blood vessel with plaque and the plaque ruptures you get a thrombus it's myardial infuction or an es schemic stroke you can complete this entire process simply by maintaining nitric oxide production if you have good inthemal function there's no way you're going to develop cardiovascular disease
(53:04) or develop a heart attack or stroke because the blood vessels are soft compliant where they dampen the pulse wave with each heartbeat. There's no adhesion molecules upregulated. Your blood vessels are smooth and clear and you get no obstruction. I'm I'm curious to know the the connection between what a lot of people call hormesis, which is putting extreme amount of stress to your body for a short amount of time, therefore increasing the thing that you just restricted, such as doing a sauna or a cold plunge or just intense
(53:35) exercise because even the way you said you were measuring N is you're kind of restricting it and seeing how much blood flow comes out. How much does doing sauna or cold plunge just like what everybody's doing these days >> or just intensive what is the correlation between that and blood flow [snorts] and n in general? >> Well, hormesis is basically explains everything we do to maintain longevity, right? We exercise, we do weight training.
(54:03) Those are brief periods of insult or injury that the body then adapts to. So when we do you know high-intensity interval training you're basically creating a hypoxic environment and you're creating eskeeia which means decreased blood flow. So then that particular vascular bed responds with oh I don't want to experience that again. I need to increase my blood vessels angioenesis.
(54:23) I need to improve oxygen delivery improve the anorobic threshold so I can continue to make cellular energy even with less oxygen. That's adaptive training. That's why people train at altitude. They increase nitric oxide production, increase vascularity, increase the efficiency of hemoglobin delivery of oxygen and increase mitochondrial function.
(54:41) So there's a there's a phenomenon called es schemic preconditioning. And when you you olude the blood flow into the brachial artery for 5 minutes that can protect the heart from injury, from heart attack. >> So it creates these these signaling molecules nitric oxide that then goes and elicits protection to all organs throughout the body.
(55:01) And that's why exercise training is cardioprotective. It's good for the heart because it's adapting to that low oxygen environment and the stress you put on it. And this could be adapted to, you know, altitude training. It can be adapted to, you know, sauna or cold plunge because sauna is doing I'm a big fan of sauna.
(55:18) I sit in the sauna every day. But it helps us detox. We detox through breathing, through sweating, through urination, defecation. And so we have to sweat. And most people don't sweat. Don't want to sweat. But it's also I like an infrared sauna because it's light therapy and it's releasing nitric oxide bound to metals.
(55:36) So it's it's activating nitric oxide production. And then cold plunge, I do sauna, then I go to cold plunge. I do 3 minutes at 170° and then 3 minutes at 40° or 37°. And for me, that's a shock to the system. But for me, it's when when we're heating up in a sauna, it's dilating all your blood vessels, right? Because you're trying not to overheat, trying to get rid of heat.
(55:58) And then when you go to that exact opposite, the contrast therapy, and you get in cold, your body's trying to conserve heat. So it diverts blood flow away from your extremities. So for me, it's like exercising your blood vessels, the contrast therapy. And I've noticed a huge difference in that. I still hate the cold plunge. >> Oh, I hate it, too.
(56:17) >> But the way that I feel 10 minutes or 15 minutes after I do that, it's amazing. It's a high that motivates me to do it every day, even though I hate it. >> Yeah. [snorts] It never wears off, right? You would think you would get better at it. But then you take >> Here's what I have noticed. Used to when I would get in there, I would see an increase in heart rate cuz it's like it's it's it's a shock to the system.
(56:36) But now when I get in, I feel my heart rate decrease. So it's balanced my autonomic nervous system. And now it's it's more relaxing when I get in there. It's still a shock to the system for the first 10 or 15 20 seconds, but then after that I'm calm. I notice my heart rate decreases and it's just really balancing my autonomic nervous system.
(56:56) If somebody was to follow you around for the whole day and shadow the things that you're doing with all of the experience that you have understanding, you know, is there a daily non-negotiable and it could be something that we've already discussed that you feel moves the most needle impact in terms of giving more energy and blood flow to your system that you just like you have to do it every day? You know, I do I do have my non-negotiables and I you know, I travel about 160,000 air miles a year.
(57:25) So, every week I'm someplace new, but I've developed this routine that no matter where I am in the world, this is what I do. I do an 18 hour fast every day. Eat my last meal at usually 6:00 or 7. I don't eat till noon or 1 the next day. That's been probably one of the most transformational things I've adapted or adopted that I've seen the greatest benefit.
(57:49) body composition, um, you know, the the the fat around the belly, huge. And and my sugar cravings completely go away. >> And then once a week, I'll do a 24-hour fast >> once a week. >> Once a week. >> Then usually once a quarter, I'll try to work in a 48 or 72-hour fast. So that's number one. Number two, I wake up every morning and take my nitric oxide.
(58:09) I usually take the beak powder because I work out in the mornings. And I do probably 25 to 30 minutes of highintensity interval training. I can do it in my hotel room. I'm doing squats, push-ups, pull-ups, stretching, jump roping, things like that. And then I usually go to the sauna and I open up my hallow app.
(58:27) I'm very faithful [snorts] person. I read scripture. I do my prayers. And, you know, just wake up with a servant's heart and give thanks. And during that time, strategize my day. How am I going to execute on what I get done today on an hour-to-our basis? And then just try to live that. And then when I do eat, I eat high protein, good fats, and limited carbs.
(58:49) When I do eat carbs, they're kind of the kind of the low glycemic index ones that don't cause an increase in blood sugar or insulin. And yeah, those are kind of my non-negotiables. And when I'm in the sauna, I'm doing nasal breathing, I'm doing deep breathing. In the morning, I take an algae product, a corellin spirulina.
(59:08) I take uh desiccated organ meats from wild bison and salmon row. And that's those are the only supplements I take. >> Just go back on the carb side. Is that more just around the glucose side or does that have anything to do with an O? >> No, [snorts] it has everything look increase in blood sugar [snorts] and people need to understand this.
(59:26) Anything that you eat that increases your blood sugar, sugar is sticky, right? If you spill a soda or sweet tea on the tabletop, you come back the next day, it's sticky. You spill on the floor. So, it's sticky inside our cells and blood system. So sugar sticks to things like hemoglobin. We measure that as hemoglobin A1C.
(59:46) And hemoglobin when it delivers oxygen, when it goes from the arteries to the veins, it has to undergo a confirmational change to deliver oxygen and pick up carbon dioxide. But if there's sugar stuck to it, it glues it into a confirmation. And you wonder why diabetics have poor healing wounds and they're hypoxic because all the sugar that they're eating is sticking to hemoglobin and they can't deliver oxygen, can't deliver CO2.
(1:00:09) They develop metabolic acidosis, poor healing wounds, macular degeneration, peripheral neuropathy. But it's not just hemoglobin. Sugar, the sugar will stick to the NOS enzyme. And in biochemistry, you have to transfer electrons and this requires confirmational changes. But if they're glued together, the proteins become dysfunctional.
(1:00:27) So, anything that you do that causes an increase in blood sugar is completely shutting down your nitric oxide production in the lining of the blood vessels. Furthermore, it's decreasing the pH of your saliva causing dispiosis and further decreasing nitric oxide production. So, I I think sugar is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than the proton pump inhibitors >> because they're completely inhibiting the body's ability to make nitric oxide, >> killing all the foundation.
(1:00:48) >> Killing the foundation. >> Yeah. And then we've we published in 2011 that we can overcome insulin resistance simply by giving nitric oxide because if your body can't make it, you can't get glucose into the cell. Now, if we give nitric oxide, we potentiate insulin signaling, get glucose into the cell, and we can overcome insulin resistance in diabetes.
(1:01:06) Insulin resistance diabetes is a symptom of nitric oxide deficiency, but you can overcome it. >> For someone that wants to learn more about the work you're doing and all of the great things that you're publishing, where can people learn more about you? You know, I always recommend people read my latest book called The Secret of Nitric oxide, bring the science to life.
(1:01:24) It's, you know, my 25-y year journey in academia discovery. Tells the story of nitric oxide. So, that's a start. I think it's a foundational read. And I tell people it's it's only for two people. It's people who are healthy and don't want to get sick or people who are sick and want to get healthy. It's a must readad.
(1:01:40) So, if you're one of those two people, you have to read the book. You know, you can certainly find me on PubMed, published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific medical papers. Follow me on social media, Instagram, Dr. Nathan S. Brian, same on LinkedIn, on X or Twitter, I'm Dr. Nitrich. And then, yeah, all of our products, you know, we're developing drug therapy through the FDA at brian therapeutics.com.
(1:01:59) We've got a, you know, a suite of consumer products at n101.com. Our mouth, our toothpaste, our developing a nitric oxide friendly mouth rinse. We'll launch in a couple of weeks, a couple months. Then we have a nitric oxide releasing lozenge. It's the only solid dose form of nitric oxide gas. You put it in your mouth.
(1:02:17) If your body can't make nitric oxide, we do it for you. We make an entire line of skin care products for the skin for aesthetics and beauty. Nitric oxide topically is amazing for skinincare. And then we make a fermented beet powder for pre-workout and energy. It's a great pre-workout energy product. Hopefully keeping kids away from, you know, the Red Bulls and the energy drinks of the world and have a, you know, a natural energy source.
(1:02:41) >> Beautiful. Dr. Nitric, >> that's right. >> Appreciate you. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for coming on. Thanks for watching. If you found this valuable, click here to watch our next video.