Nitric Oxide: The Unsung Hero of Your Health

Nitric oxide might just be the unsung hero of your health, and in this episode, we’re diving deep into why it matters. Board-certified holistic nutritionist Cathy Eason joins me to unpack the powerful role nitric oxide plays in circulation, energy, sexual health, and even blood sugar regulation.

We explore how aging naturally slows nitric oxide production, why that matters, and what you can do about it. Cathy shares practical, holistic strategies for boosting your levels, from loading your plate with nitrate-rich vegetables to simple breathwork techniques to keeping your oral health in check. You’ll also learn the surprising symptoms of low nitric oxide and how supplements may fit into your wellness plan.

If you want more energy, better circulation, and improved vitality as you age, this conversation will give you the tools to make it happen.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

·      Why nitric oxide is essential for blood flow and overall health

·      The best dietary sources of nitrates, and how often to eat them

·      How aging impacts nitric oxide production (and what to do about it)

·      The connection between oral health and nitric oxide levels

·      Breathwork techniques to naturally enhance nitric oxide

·      Symptoms that may signal low nitric oxide

·      How nitric oxide supports sexual health and function

·      When and how supplements can be beneficial

·      A holistic approach to boosting nitric oxide for optimal well-being

Nitric Oxide Supplementation - Take 15% off your first order until September 26, 2025. Use promo code: Badass

https://berkeleylife.pxf.io/raoQMD

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Transcript

0:00

Hi friend! Today's episode is a masterclass on nitric oxide. Known as the master switch for vitality and good health. Learn the signs of low nitric oxide and how to achieve optimal levels so that you can switch on this molecule for better sleep, better sex, better health, and even weight loss. If you listen regularly, you know that I reverse my heart disease. As in, I had it and now I don't. By following a whole food plant based diet. If you're ready to add more plant based meals to your life, head over to my website. Well, elephant.com after the show to grab my free cookbook is my gift to you. And if you're really ready to reverse disease like I did. Check out my online class, Ace Plant Based Eating While You're There. I made this class with you in mind. Please subscribe to the podcast and to The Age Like a Badass Mother YouTube channel so that you never miss an episode. Thank you for being here. You know that you mean the world to me. Now here we go. Hi friend, I'm Lauren Bernick and I'm flipping the script about growing older. From rebels and rule breakers to wellness warriors and wise women. My guests have been influencers since before that was even a thing, and we're not even close to finished. Welcome to age like a badass mother. Kathy is a board certified holistic nutritionist with over 20 years of clinical experience. She specializes in digestive health, autoimmune conditions, neuroendocrine dysfunction, and metabolic imbalances, with a strong focus on clinical application of a whole food diet and nutraceuticals. Kathy is passionate about supporting health care professionals through education, collaboration and holistic strategies. Please welcome Kathy. Ethan. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm really excited about this conversation we're going to have. I'm excited to have you. I am a big dork for nitric oxide. I, I told you that before. I mean, I really dork out on this stuff and I'm so passionate about it because as I shared with you, and I think anybody who knows who listens to this, regularly knows that I, reverse my heart disease with a whole food plant based diet. And part of that was boosting my nitric oxide. There's a there's a very well known doctor in this whole food plant based area called Doctor Esselstyn Caldwell Esselstyn. And he tells people to eat like a handful of greens that are steamed with a little balsamic on it six times a day to boost your nitric oxide levels. Have you ever heard of that or. I've heard of that. And I love that because I as a nutritionist, I'm a holistic nutritionist myself. I work with people across a broad spectrum of health challenges and food preferences and sensitivities and things like that. But there's really not a person I've met who can't benefit from nitrate rich vegetables. And I have heard that. And I want to add one piece to, the Dockers piece of advice, which is those vegetables really need to be chewed really well in order for us to get the full nitrate benefit and all the other, antioxidant vitamins and phytonutrients and polyphenols. We really need to start that process early. So I when you were describing that, I was picturing people just picking up handfuls of spinach and carrying them down. And I want people to be a little more mindful about how they get these nitrate rich vegetables into their diet. Right? Because you and I think the reason that he tells you to put a little balsamic on it is because so it's can you explain it? It's nitrate. And then we convert it to nitrates. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. You've got it. Yeah. The nitrate is a molecule that has, two atoms in the configuration and O3. And when by adding the balsamic vinegar, he's suggesting that you add some acid to the greens. That helps with the digestion and the breakdown of nitrates away from proteins and foods that they're bound to. And even our spinach has proteins. There's a little protein content in it. And so it just makes it more bioavailable. And then in the body we, absorb those nitrates, we break them down again into a smaller molecule. Nitrate is no. Two. And then we break them down as needed into an O or nitric oxide, which is a gas inside the body. And that gas is a powerful signaling molecule. And it's a really beautiful system. We have to intake these dietary nitrates and then utilize what we need in the moment, excrete a lot of what we ingest because we simply can't use it all. And then we recycle a lot of that through the bloodstream and we use it again. So the process, the daily intake of dietary nitrates is what supports that really sustainable, recyclable pathway to making nitric oxide in the body. Okay, wait, so you're saying we recycle it, but why do we have to eat it so often? I mean, does it just go away? Yeah. These are small mighty molecules with a short half life. So the dietary nitrates that we get in our spinach, in beetroot, in rubella, kale, celery, rhubarb, all sorts of foods, it has a half life in the bloodstream of eight hours. And in that eight hours it's been reduced to nitrite and further reduced. These are chemical reactions down to nitric oxide or it's been oxidized back to nitrate. So it's kind of on this, seesaw balance of what we need in the moment. We, we tend to think of oxidation as always bad. But from a biochemical standpoint we need oxidative reactions to function. We need the balance of both. And so that nitrate only has a half life of about eight hours. When it's reduced to nitrate, that half life is about 45 minutes. And nitric oxide has a very short half life of a few milliseconds to just a couple seconds. It's a very temporary molecule until it's chemically reacted upon, and either oxidized back to nitrate or it is, you know, turned into it, used the ingredients are used in another molecule in the body. Our body is very efficient at this. Whoa. 45 did you say 45 seconds? That's it. For nitrate. 45 minutes. Oh, okay. 45 and for nitric oxide, it is 2 to 3 milliseconds to maybe 1 to 2 seconds. That's the entire half life of that gas. Think about, you know, other, gaseous molecules, they don't last very. Long before they pay. You. Right? Yeah. So our body just uses that automatically in that short time or how does that. Yeah. Work. I'd love to explain a little bit more about the pathways, because we have two ways. We have two complementary ways of producing this really valuable miracle molecule, nitric oxide in the body. One is through a very enzyme dependent pathway that's called the OS or nitric oxide synthase pathway. It uses ingredients, amino acids in our body with the help of enzymes to produce nitric oxide and a couple other metabolites. And we can use it in the moment for everything, for dilating blood vessels and having an appropriate immune response and regulating hormones and all the other things. I'm sure we'll get into. And then the complementary pathway, which is what really intrigues me. And I'm also really I geek out on this stuff every day because this is my role at Berkeley life is to research all the science on nitric oxide. The other pathway is known as the entero in the body salivary pathway. So we eat our salad, we eat our leafy green salad, we chew it really well. We swallow nitrate. And three our body our digestive system has acids in the stomach, the function of pancreatic enzymes that help us assimilate food. And we break down that nitrate to nitrate. It's one step closer to being that gaseous molecule that we need to signal all these things. So we make it our digestive system makes it easier to, assimilate what we don't assimilate through. The small intestine gets acted upon by microbes in the intestinal microbiome. We have, specific microbes that live within us that break down nitrates into nitrate there. There are a beautiful little helpers in this. So in the large intestine, we recapture some of those nitrates as converted nitrate. And we pull that into the bloodstream. Now that molecule has that 45 minute half life that can be acted upon, and can be it's an electron exchange is what it is in biochemical terms. And it can be exchanged to make nitric oxide, those nitrates and O3 and nitrate and O2 that circulate in the bloodstream. They what we don't utilize about 60% is excreted via the kidneys and out through the urine. So we just we automatically get rid of about 60% of that through our daily urination. We use maybe 20% of it in making nitric oxide for all the various signaling properties it has. And then what doesn't get utilized gets recycled and stored in the salivary glands. There are specific cells within the salivary glands, and there's a specific transport protein that grabs onto those nitrates, pulls them into your salivary gland. And then all day long as we salivate right now, we're not eating any spinach. We're just salivating and nitrates are now bathing the population of oral microbes. These are, you know, beneficial bacteria that live in the oral cavity. And they have their own enzymes, just like in the large intestine to break down nitrate to nitrate. And we can pull some of that nitrate into the bloodstream through our mouth. And then the rest of it gets swallowed. And the whole process starts again. It is one of the most fascinating physiological recycling mechanisms I've ever studied. And it's it's complex, but also really simple is the body's innate intelligence to say, you're going to need this, this nitrate to make nitric oxide to signal better blood flow, to signal how your heart rate stays stable, to signal the immune system and your digestive system and all the other things that it does for us. And so it's our body has a perfect complementary system to the other system I mentioned first, which is really enzyme dependent. And as research has, you know, expanded, we've learned that many people have compromises or what we call gene variations to making those enzyme work functionally. And then as we age, we also start to, experience more oxidative stress in the endothelial tissue, which is where those enzymes function. And so we get a, kind of a dual decline because we have the aging process that simply reduces function, and we have oxidative stress inside our blood vessels that prevents the enzymes that are there from working well. So by eating our dietary nitrates we are complementing that. And yeah, so every day on a daily basis we need to be intaking nitrate. Which is that why I've heard and I think I heard this from Doctor Esselstyn too, that you're not supposed to use mouthwash or toothpaste with fluoride because it's it's stored in your salivary glands. I didn't even know that was stored in your salivary glands. That's crazy. Yeah, it's it's one of those things that when I first studied biochemistry a very long time ago, I learned about. But I didn't really pay attention to it until I started, working in nutrition, you know, for the last 20 years, working with people who may or may not have vegetables in their diet, who may or may not have the wrong kind of nitrates in their diet, you know, processed, cured meats like hot dogs and poor quality and cured meats and things like that. And, I'm trying to come back to your. Original, but but is that right about not having the mouthwash on the. Floor? Thank you, thank you. Yeah. What we know now, I work with a group called the American Academy of Oral and Systemic Health. These are, health care providers across dentistry dentist, hygienist, mouth functional therapists, air passage, specialists. And they will all agree that the scientific literature shows that the use of what are known as chlorhexidine mouthwash is this. I don't want to mention brand names, but. Right. That minty fresh feeling that we've been moved to achieve is damaging the the quality, the balance, the diversity of the oral microbiome that we very specifically need to break down nitrates into nitrate. And the same we're finding fluoride itself as a very, antimicrobial substance in concentration in the body. So in the effort of keeping the mouth clean, we are actually disrupting the very thing that helps us keep nitric oxide balance. And so a lot of the more holistic providers in the dentistry world are understanding that oral hygiene is best when it's really just the mechanical action of brushing our teeth appropriately and flossing and using water pits. And it's less about the toothpaste and the, mouthwash that we've all been trained to use. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Okay. And I feel like we just jumped in and I, I want to go back to a couple things. So I did you mentioned Berkeley Life, and I want to give full disclosure that I did find you through Berkeley Life. If anybody's watching on YouTube, I'm holding up this kid. So, like I said, I always dork out on nitric oxide. They you have these test strips that come with your nitric oxide supplement called nitric oxide Foundation. And the test strip, you just stick on your tongue, you put your saliva on, and then it has this, like, handy dandy little thing in the test kit you could see are you very low on nitric oxide, low threshold target or high. And when I started I was at threshold and now I'm at target pretty quickly. So I like your supplements and actually I'm going to put it in the show notes. They'll have a link. And, you were kind enough to offer 15% off to anybody who's listening if they want to try it, 15% off with the code badass. I'll put that in the show notes. But, aside from. You know, taking supplements, which is a great way to boost you can also get it through diet, which we talked about, but I think we kind of skipped over like, why is nitric oxide? We just jumped that one. Yeah, I got excited. Sorry guys. Why is nitric oxide really important especially for women or really for anybody over 40. Like what is it do. Why do we need it. Yeah. So let's give a little history first. Nitric oxide was discovered over 50 years ago. And then in the late 1990s, a group of pharmacologists won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for the discovery of nitric oxide in the body as an important signaling molecule to widening or vaso dilating your blood vessels. That helps control blood pressure, that helps control heart rate, and it helps prevent Nitric oxide was shown to signal antiplatelet aggregation, meaning you're less susceptible to getting atherosclerosis and plaques and blood clots and things like that. So in a is a huge discovery. And and then science, since since the late 1990s has discovered all these other important signaling mechanisms that nitric oxide does beyond just improving blood flow, improving blood pressure and improving heart rate. What do you mean by signaling? Can you can I stop you and ask you that? Yeah. I don't know what you biochemical terms everything. Everything in the body. I used to say that I, hated the study of biochemistry, but I've been studying it for over 20 years, and I actually really love it. It's just can be complicated. Everything in the body runs on biochemical interactions. That is usually an exchange of electrons. We are sort of electrically charged in the body, and chemicals do that for us. So as a signaling molecule, nitric oxide, either donates or accepts electrons to cause a reaction to occur. So in the instance of blood vessel dilation or whitening for better blood flow, nitric oxide signals the release of a compound called cyclic GMP and the concentration of cyclic GMP is a second signal to the smooth muscle cells around your blood vessels to relax, which allows the opening and the widening of the blood vessels. There's less constriction, there's less restriction, your blood flows straight and smooth and your blood pressure remains normal as, as a result. So signaling is what it sounds like. Like it's telling them relax, like. Okay, exactly. Relax and then relax. Yeah. In in both male and female aging health. You know, we're starting to hear a lot of people over 40 talk about their sexual dysfunction. And that blood flow isn't just about keeping your blood pressure down. It's about bringing oxygen and nutrition to every tissue of the body so that it stays healthy and functional. And in terms of sexual health, it's about making sure there's appropriate tissue perfusion of blood and oxygen and nutrients and hormones that need to flow. And and, everything that the blood carries for us, it's very important to maintain that blood flow as we age so that all of our functions our immune, digestive, metabolic, you know, weight management, sexual function, all of that stays well supplied with nutrition, carry through the play. Yeah. And again, like I said, I've gotten a lot of my education on this from Doctor Esselstyn. And he calls, erectile dysfunction the canary in the coal mine. Because if you know your penis isn't working, then that means I guess your maybe your blood vessels aren't dilating either. And so how does that how does that show up in a woman harder to orgasm or. Well, like, yeah, it is because I find that and I feel like my levels are good, but I even find like it's it takes longer for me. This it's everything from it's been studied to show that low nitric oxide levels and reduced blood flow to reproductive organs lead to less arousal, less desire. And and a lot of that is the interaction of nitric oxide signaling, the hormones and signaling, the glands that, release the hormones. But it's also about less lubrication. As women age. It is about, taking longer to achieve orgasm and not as, enhanced of an orgasm. So one of the studies that, we have funded and provided products is we're really proud of because it's a pilot study and it and we got some pretty good results. We did a female sexual function pilot study, a small, population of women, but in the Perry and postmenopausal age. And we found that 83% reported enhanced orgasm and 78% reported improved lubricant lubrication and less painless sex. And then we saw some other interesting, not statistically significant, but directional trends in things related to your nervous system. So, improvements in sleep quality and sleep duration, that's a big one for aging. And, also like just wakefulness in the morning and sort of getting rid of that brain fog. And so what women are going to experience usually starts with a lack of desire, a lack of arousal for their partner. And you know, when there's disinterest, then, nothing else really is signaled very well to make the rest of the sexual activity very fun. So we want we're going to do a larger we are doing a larger clinical trial. And these are all double blind, placebo controlled trials. We are okay. The gold standard. That we're yeah, we're trying to do gold standard research. I get to work with some amazing researchers all over the world who are doing really interesting work in nitric oxide and the aging population and and especially in postmenopausal women, because that's a big target audience, because we know that as women, age and hormone levels decline, we see a dramatic reduction in nitric oxide production that leads to less blood flow, less oxygenation, less nutrient delivery. And we start to get, those restrictions and, cardiovascular disease risk factors, showing up. And we really want to be part of the education that says we don't have to we don't have to just, become one of the one and three women who are going to die from heart heart disease. We want to be preventive about it. So we're doing this research. We love the idea that women are having better orgasms and that they are, you know, having more desire. And we think that's a healthy quality of life in aging. And so we're really proud to be doing this kind of research and looking forward to seeing what the next study results bring us. You're doing God's work bringing orgasms to women. It's the law. It's the Lord's work. Seriously. But I so is that. Tell me. So is that a sign, then? I mean, and it's really interesting because you always just think it's hormones, like, oh, the reasons, whatever these are happening are hormones. But so, so tell me some of the symptoms that, you know, your nitric oxide levels are low. Yeah. So in both men and women, but women tend to describe things a little bit differently. The first thing people usually feel is just a general lack of energy. They don't have the energy. They had to chase the kids to keep up with the busy schedule, the work life balance. They're always tired. They wake up tired. They're reaching for coffee in the afternoon because they're feeling that slant. They don't have the energy for their, you know, favorite activities. They're not walking the dog as much. They're coming home and sitting on the couch and couch potato. And rather than being active in the world and in their community, women will say things like brain fog. Men don't tend to admit to, a lack of cognitive function the same. No wonder if they have it. So do you think. Like, I know they do. I work with, you know, herds of men over the years, and I can see I can see the sharpness, the mental acuity, the kind of mental focus, kind of slipping away. And, you know, we tend to think, oh, it's just aging. No, it's low nitric oxide and not getting blood appropriate blood flow. And to your. Brain. To your brain. That's crazy. So we hear brain fog. We hear, I went to the doctor and my cholesterol has jumped dramatically and my blood pressure's creeping up. And the physician wants to put me on medications, but I really don't want to add anything to that routine. We hear, cold hands and feet a lot from women. That's the lack of circulation. And usually a lot of oxidative stress in the blood vessels that might be also related to things like early insulin resistance, development of metabolic syndrome, being labeled as pre-diabetic. We see digestive issues as well. Why is can I stop you? What what's the correlation between blood sugar and nitric oxide? Yeah, this is an important one. So nitric oxide in first in the gastrointestinal system it signals gastric motility. And what that means it's going to help make the smooth muscle cells of your, stomach, do what I call the churn and burn a little bit better. And then we have in the. What is that? Digestion? What are you. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Your stomach actually has, you know, chemical, acids and and proteins that help break down proteins and carbs and fats at the same time. Nitric oxide is signaling, the smooth muscle relaxation. So that stomach can actually do this mechanical action on it. If you've ever felt your stomach twist or turn or clench, you know it's really happening. It's a very muscular organ. And then helping gastric motility in the small intestine, activate nitric oxide activates something called the migratory complex, which is, helping move it along through the small intestine for better assimilation. When you get better assimilation of nutrients, you tend to be, better nourished, and we're less likely to start reaching for the sugars and the things that start to offset our metabolism. We know that nitric oxide plays a role in regulating the release of our hormones for hunger and satiety. We know that nitric oxide, contributes to the movement of a little transport protein that helps, bring glucose, blood sugar into the cells for energy production more efficiently. Nitric oxide at the same time plays a role in insulin sensitivity. And how well you're insulin helps with that transport of glucose to the cell and uptake into the cell. So it's very much implicated in, keeping blood sugars stable. And part of the research we've done has shown, again, not enough statistically significant results, but directional trends bringing down hemoglobin A1, C levels, which is your three month measure of blood glucose. And that's a very important marker that physicians use to determine, you know, a diabetic condition or not. Bringing down low density lipoprotein cholesterol, which is the more inflammatory type of response, bringing down other, inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein. That's another big inflammation marker that patients would see on a yearly blood test. So people start to come back to their providers and say, gosh, my blood pressure's creeping up. I just have no energy. I spent, you know, 20 pounds on around my, my midsection. And I just have no desire for sex. I'm cold all the time. And the other thing I've noticed clinically, because I do still work clinically, is that people get what I call air hunger. And they, they tend to because they're not their tissues aren't getting well oxygenated. And oxygen is used in making cellular energy. They tend to yawn a lot. They tend to sigh a lot. And I'm not talking about you just walked up the flight of stairs and you're out of breath. I mean, it becomes habitual, but it's also the body's way of saying I simply need more oxygen because I don't have enough nitric oxide, which, by the way, contains an oxygen molecule. So I see people do this kind of it. And if you look around your friend group some night, you're having a dinner party and I just see who's yawning and they'll say, oh, I just, you know, I had an early morning. I was so tired. It's like or is similar in the nutrients that you need to make. You need some nitric oxide. That nitric oxide is a hardworking lady. She's doing everything. I mean, is that that's why they call it like, the master switch, I guess. Is that because. It's the miracle molecule it's now being? Yeah, the longevity molecule. And I love I love that phrase, but I think the word longevity is getting overused. And one of the things I'm passionate about in the aging population, I am 58 years old. I am, you know, post-menopausal, 50. I have certainly watched my body change and develop, but I plan to have a healthy lifespan. I have witnessed too many people in my family have an unhealthy life span, so maybe they've lived longer than their quality of life suggested they should. I want to, you know that old saying, I want to go out kicking and screaming? Yes. Me too. We're like the same age. Yeah, I'm 57. Same. And you're a good girl. And you too, girl. But I'm not post-menopausal. But. Okay, okay. I'm still still going. I'm going through it. I just started going through it. It's crazy. But yeah, I want to have a long. That's exactly why I got interested in this. I am not interested in living for a long time. If it's not going to be good. Yeah, I want to just keel over at the end. Yeah. I prefer to call it the vibrancy molecule. The vitality molecule. It but it is really the master switch because of what, how many things in the body it signals there is not a system, a body system, that it does not play a role in. I didn't realize that. I really, just thought it had to do with your endothelium, you know, with your the lining of your arteries. That's really in the context that I knew it. But okay. So let's see. You will tell me again some of the we you name some of the foods. Like what? How do we get this from from foods. Yeah. What foods should we be? There are nitrates in most every leafy green vegetable. And I mean the dark leafy greens. Right? A arugula, Swiss chard, you know, and they have different concentrations. And as a holistic nutritionist, I'm always trying to encourage my patients to choose organic when possible because we know, you know, we're avoiding pesticides and insecticides and we're trying to get a more nutrient dense food. But we also know that there are plenty of studies on vegetable content around the country showing that not every nitrate rich food is going to have the same concentration of nitrates, and a lot of it depends on the region of the country you live in. There's soil. Probably oil. Soil properties. There's cool studies about time of day harvesting and whether or not these spring spinach will harvest moon. And you know what? Really interesting stuff showing different levels of nitrates. So we want to, do our best to choose nitrate fresh whole nitrate foods. What else? The beets. Beets have a. Lot of beets, beetroot and the greens. Pomegranates. Pomegranates is it. It's they're more about the antioxidant content. So. Oh, okay. Then the nitrates are protected by vitamin C and other antioxidant nutrients in the foods that the nitrates are packaged with. Because without nitric oxide itself, the little known molecule, it can be both oxidative and reductive, meaning that exchange of electrons I talked about before can make it swing. And sometimes, as I mentioned, we need, nitric oxide to be oxidative, meaning you've ingested a virus and your immune system wants to attack it and neutralize it. It's going to signal nitric oxide, nitric oxide itself. This is anti pathogenic. But it also start to signal a cascade of immune responses chemicals and white blood cells, to help neutralize that virus so it doesn't grow and get out of control. And you stay healthy. And this is happening every day without us knowing it, that we are constantly fighting off, or we are just managing, I should say. And maybe fighting is the wrong word, but we're managing these pathogens that come our way. And, so we use it that way. And with vitamin C, so are you saying like. The vitamin C and the antioxidants will prevent it from turning into. This is where nitrates got a bad rap. People were eating. I'm just going to really simplify it. People are eating too many pepperonis. And hot dogs have really poor quality. Yeah, they had, synthetically produced nitrates as preservatives in these foods. You ingest those without the benefit of antioxidants in your diet. Those antioxidants are there to protect the body from further oxidizing those nitrates and having them become inflammatory. In the plant world, those foods come with the antioxidants that we need. So when you're eating the whole plant food form, or you're taking a supplement that has nitrates, an antioxidant, and cofactors for assimilation, you're going to prevent the body from making those nitrates more dangerous. How else can we build nitric oxide? We do it through movement. So daily movement is very. Where can I just stop you, though. Yeah. So okay I just want to make sure I'm understanding this. So is it beneficial then to eat like your green leafy vegetables? And beets and whatever with maybe like, salad dressing that has citric, you know, like lemon juice or something like that. Things that have. Yeah. Okay. And I guess that's. Me is coming out. I love it. So I guess that's why. Okay, that's probably also the thing that Doctor Esselstyn was talking about is eating the greens with the balsamic. So it's the same maybe. Is that the same concept or is that something different? I think I guess. This is more about the acid and. Helping you. Oh, okay. Helping provide, the good acidity for the stomach to start breaking down those nitrates tonight. Okay. There are. Okay. And and I'll add compounds in balsamic vinegar but yes you would want. And spices are a great source of antioxidant too. We often don't think about culinary herbs and spices as having antioxidants. So you're, you know, using more, and especially fresh herbs. Using more of those fresh herbs will provide more of that, antioxidant compound that prevents that damaging, we call it lamination. You might have heard of nitrosamines. That's a. I have. Not that has been attached to an amine in the body. And they can become inflammatory in excess. Again, the body is all about balance. One nitrosamine molecule might have a role. 50,000 nitrosamine, molecules might have an inflammatory response. So we can't call these things necessarily bad. They are just, inflammatory when they're out of balance. So how do you how do you get nitrosamine. What? Wait, I don't. Understand, really. From how do we need to worry about it or. You don't need to worry. You know how you you know how you prevent it. You chew your foods. Really? Okay, so. And you work on optimal optimizing your digestion. So okay, there are people with or back to that inteiro salad very pathway have the nitrites and the nitrates. When we swallow them, we need good proper acidity in our stomach. And a lot of people lack that. A lot of people are using acid blockers or, you know, things like Pepcid and things like, oh yeah, we want appropriate, digestive function in that early part of the digestive system in the stomach. So a lot of people will use raw apple cider vinegar diluted in water as a digestive aid. That's a great way to ensure that the nitrates are going to start their breakdown early in the process, not remain attached to incompletely digested proteins that then might become inflammatory if they're not neutralized by an antioxidant like vitamin C or or some of the other antioxidant vitamins and and nutrients in our foods. Yeah. I mean, you just brought up a good point because I know so many people who take antacids, Prilosec and all these things, and that to me, it's saying something is wrong in your body and don't just pop a pill and you're saying that you know, this is triggering or keeping you from absorbing, right? Yes. And this and how we know this is twofold. I mean, as a as a clinician, I look at signs and symptoms of low stomach acid. So I look for gas and bloating and belching and bad breaths and, undigested food in the stool. Report it. And it's a litany of things from I kind of work on digestion from the brain down, and I look for a litany of symptoms there. But clinically, this is where the test strips for nitric oxide also come in. How we utilize the test strips initially is that we have somebody take a baseline test. It's just a snapshot in time, but it is clinically correlated via research studies to show that, the little pink color that shows up on the test strip has a quantifiable, correlation to lab values tested in blood and saliva. So somebody gets up, they take their first baseline test in the morning and they're low, and they take a dose of dietary nitrate supplementation. And 90 minutes later you set a timer, and 90 minutes later you take the test again. And you should see some improvement on the test strip. If you don't have to, if you don't have any improvement, that's suggesting that your body is not appropriately breaking down, assimilating and recycling those nitrates back to the salivary gland. So now health care providers in functional medicine and ethnic medicine in the holistic realm will start to evaluate where's that? Where's the breakdown in the pathway. So one place to look is do I have appropriate stomach acid. Do I have appropriate the stomach digestion to start breaking down those nitrates? Remembering that we need nitric oxide to improve the motility of our intestinal system, helping us pull those nitrates in, we can't do a blood draw and test our nitrates every day. It doesn't work. You know, not feasible from a consumer standpoint, but we can look for the signs and symptoms where the breakdown might occur. So it could be low, or poor quality digestion in the stomach. It could be gut dysbiosis, meaning large intestine, you know, or microbiome imbalances. It could be, related to, poor quality and diversity and capacity of the oral microbiome to be part of that recycling process. So as a clinician, I look at all those things. You know, if you're not if you're not changing the color on that test strap with one dose, we need to figure out right away where's the breakdown in the process so that I can help you better assimilate to this very important foundational nutrient that are the nitrates. So you if you're not seeing any difference on that test strip, then somebody needs to see a doctor. Is that kind of what you're saying. Unnecessarily or just you start to you start to in knowing what, you know, from this talk today, you start to investigate how is my digestion. And it could be as simple as using, you know, steaming those greens with the acid of the balsamic vinegar that will help support the acidity of the stomach. You could use the remedy of raw apple cider vinegar diluted in water, about one ounce and about four of vinegar and about four ounces of room temperature water. And drink that before you're. How is that like a what is that like a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar or maybe. And then. Yeah. It's. Small and with a tablespoon and workup. And then for about four tablespoons of water. Water. Yeah. You can also get some. Not everybody loves vinegar as much as I do. You know I can just kind of, chug it straight from the bottle. But, not everybody does that. So there are brands out there that have sort of honey sweetened varieties and stuff, but the same thing could be done with a digestive supplement as well, too. But the other thing that Berkeley Life offers is we know that when when the the recycling system breaks down the oral and that test strip isn't changing, that means that there's no, there's not enough of those nitrate reducing bacterial species in the oral cavity to take the nitrates in your saliva and break them down to nitrate. So we offer a prebiotic nitrate rich chewing gum that is, sort of a functional gum or a therapeutic gum. And it contains the same dietary nitrates in our, primary capsule formula. But it also contains specific, ingredients in the gum base that help, repopulate the beneficial bacteria in the oral cavity, including those nitrate reducing ones, and dampen down. The more pathogenic ones. Oh, so interesting is bad breath from your low stomach acid or is it from your unbalanced microbiome? It's probably both. You know, so the the what the gum does is, we recommend that people chew the gum one piece of gum for five minutes twice a day. And what I see clinically is, in about 1 to 2 weeks of twice a day, gum chewing, that test strip starts to change more. We start to see the benefit because now we know that there's better balance in the oral microbiome. They're doing a better job for us, breaking down our nitrates to nitrate. That's going to contribute to increased nitric oxide production, better blood flow, better weight management, better hormone balance, better sexual function, better immune function, and vitality through the lifespan of man. Okay, so I didn't. So bad breath is if somebody has like chronic what is it called? Halitosis. So then they have maybe some low stomach acid or something wrong with their saliva biome. Yeah, that's their oral biome. Those are potential root causes. Yes. Okay. When people report that, I mean, you know, there are there are other, heavy metal imbalances can create, halitosis, but those are kind of the two biggies that you look for is something like early digestive function and something in the health of the oral cavity, including the oral microbiome. Well, okay. It sounds like, I just really like I said, I, I'm a little bit I thought I knew a lot about nitric oxide. Well, not a lot, but like, a lot for, you know, layperson, but I, I guess I, like I said, I really just thought it had to do with their endothelial. I didn't realize it affected your weight, your hormones, your sleep, your I mean, I knew sexual function. I did know that because of vasodilation. I mean, what, just like, it seems like it touches everything. That's even, like your breathing. Like you were saying. You're saying in your oxygen. I mean, that's that's incredible. I, so I got this test. I did the Cleveland Heart Lab when I was trying to. You know, you're shaking your head. You know, at the Cleveland Heart lab panel is. So when I was trying to figure out if I had reversed my heart disease, that was one of the ways they gave me the Cleveland Heart Lab panel. And it tests Adama, which I guess is I don't know exactly what it is, but it says my Adama is in the desirable range, suggesting optimal levels of nitric oxide and low risk of endothelial function. What's what? So what is Adama? And should we test for that or. No. Yes and no. You had, such a beautiful and dramatic change in your health and you, you, you know, so along your pathway, it was probably very important to get those kinds of specific measures. That's not a common test. I'm sure that, Cleveland also test also includes, like a score, a test of your calcium score in your blood vessels. And, you know, that's going to, as calcium accumulates in the blood vessels, that's going to create increased risk of blood clotting and, and potential for stroke and all of that. Adama is another secondary messenger molecule. So when I said that, nitric oxide stimulates the release or the, accumulation of a molecule called cyclic GMP, ADM is another measurable molecule in the bloodstream. Nitric oxide also signals that molecule, which has its own host of additional, physiological signaling mechanisms, and they all in concert with each other. It's like a beautiful orchestra. And nitric oxide is sort of leading the way as the conductor and saying, yeah, you know, you trombone, you know, turn it down and you like flute to turn it up. And, so I like to use analogies like that to sort of simplify it because it is a very complex, complex metabolic reaction. I think, okay, the average patient will see are those markers of inflammation. So, if there is somebody like you and they're really dedicated to, you know, reversing, a chronic disease which is entirely possible, as you've proven to us. So, yes. The the first things to start looking at are the most common ones. So looking at the things that cause oxidative stress in the and the clear tissue inside your blood vessels, which then starts to lead to inflammation. And what does the body do when there's inflammation. It creates a response to try to manage it. And that tends to make things, almost worse before they get better, especially if the lifestyle hasn't changed at all. So we would look for things like high glucose in the blood. We want to keep our glucose levels normal. And then on a typical blood chemistry test from an average doctor visit, you're going to get that hemoglobin A1, C, which is a three month measure of glucose. And that is something that is that elevates. That's a big red flag for inflammation. So our rises. It is natural for us to have see our cholesterol, our total cholesterol rise as we age. We need it. We have some degradation going on age related. We need to do a little patch and repair in our vessels. And, we need some of that cholesterol to rise. But when we see big jumps in, especially the low density lipoprotein, and then we start to be concerned that there's an inflammatory response that the body's trying to target. And that's why we're seeing a jump in cholesterol. So we look for, rising glucose, rising cholesterol. We look for elevations in homocysteine and C-reactive protein. Those are also two, inflammatory blood markers. I always have my patients look at their vitamin D3 levels because vitamin D3 plays a role. It's very hormone like, and it plays a role in so many mechanisms in the body. But it's also directly related to nitric oxide function. They work in tandem. In some hormone and immune channels. And so I think that's the place to start that. And then, nitric oxide has been studied really well in physical performance. And so if you are the weekend warrior and you want to improve your five k time, or you want to be, you know, have more stamina for pickleball, we work for a lot of pickleball. And the paddle, is big in Austin, where you live right now? Yeah. Cyclists and runners and things like that. There's a balance of those sort of extreme exercise levels tend to increase oxidative stress. At the same time, nitric oxide is trying to restore the health and the tissue that's making nitric oxide to give you energy to do the events. So it's it's all about a balance. And so we in individuals like that using the test strips to it's a really simple, noninvasive ten second salivary test you can do at home to see if your levels of nitrate testing through your saliva are remaining fairly consistent. You're going to have peaks and valleys and and fluctuations depending on the activity of your life. But, nitric oxide has been studied so well for improving endurance, improving stamina and improving power output. So then if you're that person, you might be testing your VO2 max and you might be, you know, having your, sort of sports medicine related doctor test your grip strength and, other markers of power output that can be done really easily in the clinic. There's a lot of teams and occupational therapists in that kind of, testing, too. So, I mean, it depends on how far you want to geek out. Yeah, I think the basic inflammatory markers are the starting point. And then you have this real risk of cardiovascular disease going and doing something more extensive, like the Cleveland test. You did. Okay. So just so I understand. So let's say your blood pressure jumps up, your cholesterol is higher, your A1 C is creeping up. Your, what else what else would be poor sleep, poor lubrication, poor hormone like orgasming or erection. Erectile dysfunction. You catch a cold and you don't get over it very quickly. You don't have okay. Robust enough for me in response to handle. Wound wound healing to another. And so these are all indicated dry skin. The appearance of fine lines and wrinkles that are kind of, getting more, you know, we're all going to get some we're going. To get some. Well, I'm happy for my smile lines, but yeah, but skin skin is a big tell. So everything from, you know, skin rashes, eczema, autoimmune conditions like psoriasis, but really just, skin that is dry, dry, dry all the time, and no amount of moisturizer or hydration is touching it. That's another. And it's like hair loss. Hair loss is another one that we know. Oh really? If you're not getting good blood flow, oxygen and nutrients to the, scalp, you're not going to, you know, seal those hair follicles, too. I hear that all the time. So research, especially in male pattern baldness, about really using, nitrates and you can use a nitric oxide based serum on skin for healing wounds, but also for, I haven't seen clinically, I haven't seen anybody reverse their male pattern baldness. I don't want to give false. Yeah. There. But we do know like for for people recovering from skin cancers and things like that. It's a really great way to, both internally increase your nitrates and perhaps topically use a serum. Or do you get a topical do you have to get that like compounded or. I would talk to your, prescribing physician about where find the best quality because there's some really, poor quality aftermarket or should I say over-the-counter market lens. I don't really want to recommend. Right. But I would say talk to your your primary care physician or your functional medicine provider to find those because they'll find you the right quality. Berkeley Life no longer has a serum. If you are using a serum, you need to make sure it's got that antioxidant rich base in it. So it should come with some kind of vitamin C serum as well, too. And then in your neck of the woods, I do want to give a shout out to a friend of mine in your neck of the woods who has a great line of skincare, and she does a vitamin C serum that I have seen coupled with dietary nitrate intake. I've seen it really improve people's skin health and especially someone healing. And, the name of the company is Life Root Botanicals, and they are all fruit life okay. Life root botanicals. Awesome. Well, thank you for all that good information. So just, some fun quick questions I like to do at the end. Do you? Well, I think I know what you're going to say for your best piece of advice for aging. Well, but what is your best piece of advice for aging? Well, maybe it's not. You know, I have several, but, I think it's to embrace each day with vitality. And for me, nature is a big part of vitality. So even if I can't get out in nature every single day, I walk outside. In the morning, I put bare feet in grass, and I put my face to the sun. And I do some breathwork. Breathwork targeted breathwork as a way to build nitric oxide in the nasal cavity, too. And as somebody who has been through, I recovered from mold toxicity. I had a sinus surgery about seven years ago, and it's very important for me to keep those nasal passages, really healthy. And it's also just great for my psyche and my, my perspective to get out and, and and if there's no sun, just put your face up there and pretend it's there. They're still there. The UV rays are still coming through. You know, you, you said something that just triggered my memory about, nasal breathing. Do you do you like that mouth tape trend that people are using for sleeping for a lot? I tried it for myself, but just like I did when I was a kid and I had headgear with my braces, I ripped that tape off in the. Middle and yeah, that seems like what I would do. So what I, what I encourage people to do is practice. There's many YouTube videos to practice breathwork. I like the really simple four, seven, eight breath. It's got a Taoist tradition, but it's been replicated by many people and it's very targeted to, the nervous system and especially your vagus nerve, which also controls so much of our organ function. And it has a relationship of boosting, nitric oxide when needed, to help us activate digestion and help us activate hormone release and all that. And that four, seven, eight breath is really simple. You breathe through both nostrils to account of for you deep inhale, you hold it for a count of seven, and then you exhale for a count of eight. And it's important to do pursed lips. Or you release through your lips. Release you through your lips. Because okay. So you breathe in through your nose, hold it for four, hold it for seven, and then do pursed lips and breathe it out for a count of eight. Through both the nostrils and the person. So you just kind of mouth and, and you're going to get a little bit of both. And what that pursed lips does is and you repeat that cycle three times, is there is the recommendation that centers your autonomic nervous system so that you, your sympathetic and parasympathetic relax and and go buttons are more aligned and more balanced. It also increases nitric oxide in the para sinus cavities. But the the person of the lips also helps us activate all the sphincter muscles in the body. If you are a woman and you put on your mascara, the open your eyes your way and you open your mouth at the same time, yes, you're kind of doing the same thing. So we purse the lips. And what that does is it sort of, tones the, the center muscles of the body. That's everything from a little muscle around your bile duct that helps you with good bile flow out of your, liver. It's, the sphincters of your intestines is the centers of, our face musculature. So really important to just. It's a very holistic way to sort of activate the whole body. I love that I just learned something so new. I learned so many new things today. But that was it. And then, thank you for that. And then lastly, what's your favorite concert you've ever been to? Oh, well, I told you before, the, call that I just went to an amazing, epic, bluegrass festival in Targhee, Wyoming. That was lovely. But I will say, my favorite concert ever was Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats on an outdoor stage in Portland, Oregon. And part of what made it so special was not only how great the band was, but how many communities of friends from different areas of my life that were there in one evening, and they all came together, and it was just so heartful that it's probably the best show I've ever seen. I've seen him. I saw him at Radio City Music Hall in New York, and I'm telling you, that place was going wild. That is. Oh my gosh, that's a good one. I you know what? I haven't thought of that concert in a couple of years, but boy, that was a good concert. Yeah, well good one. Kathy, I think. You will have to play their stuff today and get your answer on and and have some vitality. Oh my God, that is a good one. Well, thank you for all of your health help, your health, your help. And, like I said in the show notes, I'll put, the link for Berkeley Life with the 15% off code with badass. So thank you for everything. Thank you. Take care. You're going to be here. Thanks. Have a. Great day. I. Thanks for listening, friend. From my heart to yours. Be well. Until we meet again.