When talking about the health benefits of nitric oxide its best to start with pointing out it is NOT ‘nitrous’ oxide which you add to cars to make them go faster, and also makes you laugh (laughing gas)
Nitric Oxide is something very, very important to your health.
I first learned about it back in chiropractic college in about 
1992, a few years before Dr Louis Ignarro, Robert F. Furchgott and Ferid Murad won the the 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering it’s importance and mechanisms of action.
Water, Nitric Oxide, Tea and Coffee
Here’s the Nitric Oxide scoop from Dr Ignarro himself:
Even if you have a healthy diet and lifestyle, once you reach the age of 40 Nitric Oxide manufacture starts to deplete.
In the clinic I find many younger patients – even teenage girls and boys, are depleted in this important molecule. How do I know? Because I have testing sticks.
How To Boost Nitric Oxide
https://ctt.ac/2h3aW – click the link to automatically Tweet about this page
To raise nitric oxide levels in your body it is important to have a healthy diet.
No surprises that dark green leafy vegetables help! My favourite is spinach – cooked or raw.
Other good sources are wild salmon, organ meets, walnuts, dark chocolate, and this one came as a surprise to me while researching this article – honey! (but only raw unheated honey).
Many people are so depleted of nitric oxide that diet is not enough and they need supplementation. My top recommendation follows….
An article I wrote for a local magazine:
Mushrooms, Coffee, and the ‘Molecule of the Year’!
Is your coffee acid? Does it give you jitters, stop you sleeping and raise your blood pressure?
Well the answer to the first one is almost certainly yes, and if you have high blood pressure then your tea and coffee is most likely not helping.
The problem with acidity is that it will ‘burn’ your muscles, joints and organs, leaving you more prone to aches, pains and general degeneration.
Even ‘good’ green tea is still acidic.
But fear not as help is at hand from 4000 years of Chinese Medicine.
Most of today’s modern medical cures are based on chemicals found in plants. In the West the idea is to find out just what it is in the plant that has the effect, then make it in a lab, maybe ‘improve’ it and sell it at a vast mark-up!
In Chinese Medicine, the testing has been going on for thousands of years. The general belief there is instead of trying to ‘cure’ ailments with specific chemicals, it is better to boost general overall health.
The ‘king’ of these traditional Chinese remedies is a medicinal mushroom known as ganoderma lucidum.
There are over 400 active compounds in this single mushroom, and science has discovered that they all work better together – which makes it very hard for the drug companies to copy any single effect, but very good for growers of the plant.
So what does ganoderma do?
Well, we would need an entire text-book to go into all of them, but it’s enough just to concentrate on 3.
First off, ganoderma is highly alkaline, which combats many of today’s acid causing activities – tea, coffee, alcohol, pollution and stress are just some, along with not eating enough vegetables (you need 10-15 a day).
One important thing to realise about keeping a slightly alkaline environment in your body is that it helps oxygenation, and prevents cancer cells from forming.
Next, ganoderma helps optimise nitric oxide (NO) levels in your body. This is not to be confused with nitrous oxide, also known as ‘laughing gas’!
Nitric oxide is a very important molecule in the human body, that is severely depleted after the age of 40.
Nitric oxide:
- Protects your heart by relaxing your blood vessels and lowering your blood pressure
- Stimulates your brain, which can impact behaviour
- Kills bacteria
- Defends against tumor cells
- Helps combat diabetes
- Produces energy (great for athletes)
The importance of the discovery of NO cannot be understated, it one a Noble Prize, and was named ‘Molecule of the Year’ in 1992!
Another molecule that ganoderma boosts is glutathione.
Like NO, glutathione is involved in a wide range of processes from cleaning your liver and kidneys to enhancing your immune system.
These are just some of the properties of this amazing fungi. What is also amazing is that while it really helps with energy levels it also improves sleep. This may seem paradoxical, but it’s true. Ganoderma does not actually make you drowsy, it just helps you regulate your sleep when you decide to go to sleep.
There is a wide range of quality in ganoderma supplements, and because of it’s fibrous nature means you should take it with hot water. This does mean that it mixes quite well with coffee, and so is often sold pre-mixed with it.
Never by any ganoderma supplements (or any other pills) from Amazon or Ebay as it is full of black market and fake suppliers. Always track down a supplier that can tell you about the quality and can answer any questions you may have.
Happy mushroom hunting.
You can find out more about the magic coffee and why golf legend Greg Norman is such a fan here – Magic Healthy Coffee
Give the clinic a call on 01707 662 704 to come in, and try the ganoderma drinks.
