Transform Your Health With Nitric Oxide | Dr. Nathan Bryan

My whole goal is to do is to not apply the principles of pharmacology, which is what western medicine is is prescribing, prescription medication, synthetic compounds that inhibit biochemical reactions. My approach has been completely different. Let's understand the mechanism of disease to the extent that we can restore the normal function. We coined this term restorative physiology. Understand what the body is missing and give the body back what it needs. And that's what we do with our nitric oxide technology. We know how much nitric oxide a healthy person makes. We know how much is deficient in people with erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, dementia. We give that back. That's what we do with nitric oxide.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the Dr. Joyc podcast. I am here, of course, to bring you the best of the best so that you can improve your own health and live the most vibrant life possible. Today, uh, there's a subject that has gained a lot of attention, uh, which is nitric oxide. And I have the foremost expert in this subject, Dr. Nathan Brian, uh, who is here to enlighten us and, um, with, with his brilliance. So, Dr. Nathan, thank you so much for coming back onto my show.

Well, thanks so much. It's, I didn't realize it had been over three years, but always good to see you and thanks for having me on.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I learned so much from you always. You are a wealth of information. Uh, there may be some, uh, still, you know, some people don't understand nitric oxide very well. I utilize it in my stem cell treatment every day because I believe that you can't really get the cells to places unless you have good blood circulation, right? But on top of that, nitric oxides do more when it comes to stem cells. So we can talk more about that a little bit later. But, uh, yeah, I want to introduce you to the audience first. You know, you are a renowned researcher. You've studied under Nobel laureates, and then you have published over a hundred papers with dozens of patents. So, and, and they're all in the area of nitric oxide, correct?

That's right. Yeah, that's all I've spent the past 25 or 30 years on, studying the single molecule nitric oxide.

Yeah, so tell us, what is about this particular molecule that got you so excited that you devoted your whole career to it?

Well, you know, I came out of, I got a degree in biochemistry from the University of Texas in Austin, and then I went to LSU School of Medicine where I, where I completed a PhD in molecular and cellular physiology. This was in the late '90s, early 2000s, and a Nobel Prize had just been awarded for the discovery of nitric oxide. There was a lot of excitement around that field. You know, it was a, it was really a unique, interesting molecule because it's a gas when it's produced inside the body, and once it's produced, it's gone in less than a second. You know, 25 years ago, we realized that it was a vasodilator, meaning that it increased blood flow and circulation throughout the entire body. But we really didn't know how to measure it. We didn't know, really, a clear understanding of how the human body made nitric oxide, and we really didn't understand what led to a loss of nitric oxide production, which then we knew led to things like sexual dysfunction, high blood pressure, advanced acceleration of, of cardiovascular disease, dementia, Alzheimer's. So really, you know, it kind of piqued my interest. You know, there was, we knew a lot at the time, but there were still so many things we didn't know and understand about nitric oxide. So for me, we knew it was a very important subject, and if we could understand how to restore and recapitulate nitric oxide production signaling in the human body, then everybody thought that it would change the world, and it would certainly change the world of medicine and healthcare, and, you know, this emerging field of wellness and longevity. And, you know, I'm proud to say 25 years later, we've answered all those questions. We understand all the, the unanswered questions at the time. We know how the human body makes nitric oxide. We know what goes wrong in people that can't make it. And perhaps most importantly, we know how to restore the production of this molecule.

Yeah, the first time I heard about nitric oxide was because of Viagra when I was in medical school. That's when they, when they talked about the, the role it played. But that was the time that you were just getting into nitric oxide research? Is that around that time?

Now, that's right. The, the, the PDE5 inhibitors like Viagra were approved by the FDA, I believe, in 1998, same year that the Nobel Prize was awarded. And so these drugs, you know, they potentiate nitric oxide signaling, but they're not nitric oxide doers. You know, if you fast forward 25, 26 years later, we know, and you know, as a physician, that men that are prescribed Viagra, Cialis, only 50% of those patients respond with better erectile function or better urinary symptoms of BPH, the indications of those drugs. And the reason for that is because in order for those drugs to work, the body and the blood vessels have to be able to generate and produce a little amount, a little nitric oxide. If you can't make nitric oxide, then those drugs can't work. And really, that's the basis for erectile dysfunction. So if we can restore the production of nitric oxide, we can basically take those non-responders and make them responders to PDE5 inhibition therapy and basically, you know, restore physiology, which is what my whole goal is to do is to not apply the principles of pharmacology, which is what western medicine is is prescribing, prescription medication, synthetic compounds that inhibit biochemical reactions. My approach has been completely different. Let's understand the mechanism of disease to the extent that we can restore the normal function. And we, we coined this restorative physiology. And so understand what the body is missing and give the body back what it, what it needs. And that's what we do with our nitric oxide technology. We know how much nitric oxide a healthy person makes. We know how much is deficient in people with erectile dysfunction, high blood pressure, dementia. And we, we give that back. You know, it's kind of like if you're low in vitamin D, what do you do? You give vitamin D. If you're low in testosterone or estrogen, we give those back to normal physiological levels. And that's what we do with nitric oxide.

So, just for the, like, people, how does something like Viagra and the nitric oxide gases, so, how do they work together?

So, in the lining of the blood vessels, there's an enzyme called nitric oxide synthase. And it's in our endothelial cells. And the endothelial cells are the cells that lie in all blood vessels throughout the body. So when we become, let's use arousal and sexual activity for example. So when we become stimulated, that turns on these nerve endings, the non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic nerve endings, but also tells our blood vessels to make nitric oxide so we can dilate the blood vessels. And so nitric oxide, once it's produced, it activates a second messenger system called soluble guanylate cyclase. And this cyclic, this enzyme leads to an accumulation of a molecule called cyclic GMP. And so this is pretty complex biochemistry, but it's the molecule cyclic GMP that leads to smooth muscle relaxation, calcium mobilization, which leads to blood vessel dilation. So as we all know, in order to get an erection, both in men and women, we need to dilate the blood vessels of the sex organs where we can get engorgement of blood flow, prevent the outflow. And that's both a clitoral and a penile erection. So the PDE5 inhibitors, drugs like Viagra, prevent the breakdown of cyclic GMP. So I like to say nitric oxide turns this switch on through the elevation of cyclic GMP, and the PDE5 inhibitors keep it on because they prevent the breakdown of that molecule. And so that, that's why you're warned against four-hour erections. That's why there's, in some people, an unsafe drop in blood pressure because you've lost the off switch. And so physiology, normal physiology and biochemistry, we turn something on, but then there's regulation, and we can turn it off. That the PDE5 inhibitors prevent that signal from being turned off. And look, these drugs are very successful. They work great for improving sexual function, at least in 50% of the patients.

So what happened to the other 50%? What was the problem with the other 50%?

Well, the other 50% don't produce any nitric oxide to lead to an accumulation of cyclic GMP. So the drugs cannot and do not work. So that told us 25 years ago that the mechanism of action of erectile dysfunction is a loss of nitric oxide production. That's the fundamental basis of sexual dysfunction. If you lose the ability to make nitric oxide, you cannot get an erection because you can't dilate the blood vessels and get engorgement into the sex organs. But if you look at the, the, the clinical indications now and clinical data on the PDE5 inhibitors, they're improving pulmonary hypertension. They can dilate the pulmonary arteries and reduce pulmonary pressures. There's data now showing that people who have been on PDE5 inhibition therapy, low dose, you know, for three to five years, have less incidents of Alzheimer's and dementia. So what we're finding is any mechanism, any modality that improves blood flow, dilates blood vessels, improves oxygen and nutrient delivery, basically prevents most age-related chronic diseases. And that's what nitric oxide does.

Okay, so I wonder if there's any statistics about sexual function 100 years ago versus now. Are there more prevalence of sexual dysfunction these days?

There are, and I think there's, there's a couple of reasons for that. And there are data, you know, from the 1970s. You know, I think 45 to 50% of women reported some type of sexual arousal disorder. And today, what we call erectile dysfunction. But, you know, 50 years ago, this was a taboo subject. You didn't speak about this at the, at the dinner table, or, you know, there was, there was shamefulness in it. Uh, but now it's recognized that it's what we call the canary in the coal mine. If you have sexual dysfunction, this is a risk factor for advanced acceleration of cardiovascular disease, atherosclerosis, dementia, high blood pressure. So now you have to reveal to your physician and your practitioner that you've got what we call erectile dysfunction, which is also endothelial dysfunction. Because if you can't dilate the blood vessels of the sex organs, that same dysfunction occurs in your coronary arteries. So you can't dilate the, the coronary arteries to increase, you know, to meet the increased metabolic demands if you, you know, exercise. You can't dilate the blood vessels of the brain to recall memories, you get dementia and eventually Alzheimer's. Or you can't dilate the blood vessels of the skeletal muscle if you want to exercise or work out. So this erectile dysfunction, or endothelial dysfunction, is a topic now of discussion because it's a symptom of systemic disease that leads to a rapid acceleration of the number one killer of men and women worldwide, which is cardiovascular disease. So today, we know that about 50% of the men over the age of 40 self-report erectile dysfunction, 50%. And that number goes up with each decade. So by the time you're in your 60s and 70s, you know, it's estimated that 80 to 90% of those patients have erectile dysfunction, which translates into endothelial dysfunction. So much so that people are accepting it as it is normal. And that's just, they think they, they should lose it, which is not the case.

No, that's right. And, you know, we, we have data and others have data showing that we can prevent this age-related decline in nitric oxide production. So what, now that we understand how the human body makes nitric oxide, we understand what's leading to a loss of its production, now we can properly inform and instruct patients to stop doing the things that we know disrupt nitric oxide production and start doing the things that we know that clinically improve it, so that you don't lose this production of this molecule with age, and you can have a, you know, a healthy sex life into your 60s, 70s, and 80s, and, and not have high blood pressure, and not have diabetes, and not have dementia and Alzheimer's.

Well, let's talk about why the level of nitric oxide in people's bodies have declined. It sounds like aggressively over the past decades. What, what do you think is the reason?

Well, there's several reasons because first, we have to define how the human body makes nitric oxide, right? So we, we discussed this pathway of this enzyme and the lining of the blood vessels, and really, it becomes uncoupled. And so this, this is the Western diet, Western lifestyle, which leads to oxidative stress, inflammation, and immune dysfunction. And all that leads to a loss of nitric oxide, which then further exacerbates those. But the problem is sugar, uh, a carbohydrate-rich diet, because sugar and carbohydrates are metabolized into glucose in the body, right? And glucose, as the name implies, is glue, right? It sticks. It sticks to proteins and prevents their conformational changes. And we can measure this in the blood when glucose sticks to hemoglobin, this is called hemoglobin A1c, right? And so it's a, it's a long-term measure of blood glucose control. But what happens is when sugar sticks to these proteins and enzymes, it prevents them from doing their job. So hemoglobin has to undergo a conformational change when it goes from the arteries to the veins to, uh, pick up oxygen and pick up CO2. If sugar stuck to this molecule, it can't undergo its conformational change, and we develop hypoxia. And that's the reason people, you know, the problem from 2020 to 2024 during that worldwide pandemic was people developed hypoxemia because they couldn't pick up oxygen, they couldn't deliver oxygen. And the same thing happens with the nitric oxide synthase enzyme. Sugar sticks to it, and it can't produce nitric oxide, and we get oxidative stress. It leads to BH4 oxidation, an uncoupling. So that's a major problem. Eliminating sugar. And then, uh, to resolve that, you got to eliminate sugar. The other pathway we discovered about 20 years ago was through the oral microbiome. You know, the bacteria that live on the dorsal part of the tongue in our mouth are part of our microbiome, the symbiotic bacteria that are doing things that the human body can't do. And we, and others, published on this, you know, 15 years ago, that the bacteria in the mouth are there, part of the microbiome, is to produce nitric oxide gas. So anything that disrupts the microbiome leads to a nitric oxide deficiency. And what is that? Well, it's antiseptic mouthwash. Two out of three Americans wake up every day and use antiseptic mouthwash, and two out of three Americans have an unsafe elevation in blood pressure. And that's causal. We, and others, have published, if you use mouthwash, you destroy the microbiome, you shut down nitric oxide production, your blood pressure goes up, you lose the protective benefits of exercise, and eventually you develop erectile dysfunction.

Well, I know people do tongue scraping. Would that cause any problems?

In our 2019 paper, we actually revealed that the patients who did tongue scraping actually had the best nitric oxide production and they had the best blood pressure. But the problem was the people who were tongue scraping but then used antiseptic mouthwash were the ones we saw the highest increase in blood pressure. That's the worst. That's the worst. Her tongue scraping is good. Tongue scraping with antiseptic mouthwash is the absolute worst.

Yeah. Okay. Then the other thing is fluoride. You know, fluoride is in, in toothpaste because it's an antiseptic. Fluoride's in most municipal water supply, why? Because it kills the bacteria in the water. So the, the water that's fluorinated that you drink, that you bathe in, that you cook in, is eradicating the microbiome in your body and it's causing enormous damage to the microbiome and shutting down nitric oxide production and causing chronic disease. So you have to get rid of fluoride. Fluoride-free toothpaste, get a home filtration system and get rid of fluoride. And then the third big contributing factor is our antacids. And these are specifically what we call proton pump inhibitors. The things like Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Omeprazole, Pantoprazole, the prescription medications. So these, these medicines, again, this is based on clinical data. People who have been on PPIs for three to five years have a 40% higher incidence of heart attack, stroke, and Alzheimer's. Wow. So that's, that's the observation. Mechanistically, we know because it's completely shutting down nitric oxide production. So if you, if you get rid of fluoride, if you stop using mouthwash and start to restore the microbiome, and get patients off of antacids, now you kind of release the brakes on the body's ability to produce nitric oxide.

Yeah. Do we know how PPIs shut down the nitric oxide production?

Well, there's two. Again, it's shutting down nitric oxide from both pathways. So number one, when you use PPIs, they inhibit an enzyme called DDAH. And this, this enzyme is what breaks down a metabolite called asymmetric dimethylarginine, or ADMA. So patients on PPIs have an elevation of ADMA, which inhibits nitric oxide production in the lining of the blood vessel. The other pathway is, you need stomach acid to, and you need an acidic stomach to, when you swallow your own saliva, we get a burst of nitric oxide in the lumen of the stomach. And without stomach acid, because of antacids, we eliminate the nitric oxide that's being produced. So the antacids shut down nitric oxide from both pathways that the human body makes nitric oxide. And the consequences of that are heart attack, stroke, and Alzheimer's. I mean, these drugs, I've argued now for 10 years, these drugs should be taken off the market. They're more dangerous than the COX-2 inhibitors, uh, from the early 2000s that were causing heart attacks and strokes. They were eventually, they were taken off the market. Now they have a black box warning on, on, this is the Celebrex. The Vioxx. PPIs are more dangerous and causing more death and destruction than the Vioxx.

Wow. That's very considering how many people pop them like candy.

Yeah. You don't even have to have a prescription for them. You and I know people through conversations like this, they go, I've been taking these over-the-counter PPIs for 20 years, and they don't. They don't know. If people knew the dangers of these drugs, there's no way they would take them. There's no way because it's all about risk-benefit. What's the benefit? Where's the risk? And the risk far outweighs any benefit provided by these products.

There are people who don't do any of those things, right? Mouthwash and nitric oxide, I mean, the, uh, PPI, or, or, or do any other, you know, fluoride, even though they filtered their system, but they still have low nitric oxide because it's, it's prevalent because I've tested a lot of my patients. So why are other people low on nitric oxide?

Well, look, it's everything in the environment. You know, the food that we eat and grow in America is really devoid of any real nutrients. We have data showing from the 1940s to the early 2000s, there's a 70% decline in the basic micronutrients in the food grown in America. So we become nutrient deficient. The other thing is the food we eat, you know, whether it's GMO-based food or it's, uh, food, you know, sprayed with pesticides, herbicides, glyphosate. Glyphosate completely shuts down nitric oxide production, and it's rampant. It's, it's in the foods we eat. It's, you know, it's now that we can detect it in breast milk of mothers that are breastfeeding. So it's a huge problem. So that's one. You know, there's certain frequencies, the 5G. If you live in an urban environment, you're, you know, bombarded with EMFs. That frequency and amount of radiation can disrupt nitric oxide production. And then physical inactivity. Their diet, you know, anything that leads to oxidative stress and inflammation is going to shut down nitric oxide production. If they've got some type of autoimmunity and a, you know, a viral infection that leads to increased inflammation, oxidative stress, again, it's going to lead them to nitric oxide deficiency.

Yeah. So what are your suggestions, uh, when you, you know, come upon a person and you're chatting about nitric oxide and they say, what do I do? Do I take arginine? Do I eat beets? Like, what do I do?

Well, I think you've got to look at, and we, in this whole realm of personalized nutrition and personalized medicine, you have to look and see what is, what's that patient's primary clinical presentations and symptoms and how do we fix it. So first thing I always do is, you know, do a basic micronutrient analysis to figure out what your body's missing. Because nitric oxide is foundational, but, you know, if you're missing like magnesium, which 75% of Americans are deficient in, you know, that's a very simple fix. Let's restore and replete your magnesium levels, which by the way, is an essential cofactor to make nitric oxide. But, you know, I tell people, again, stop doing the things that scrap nitric oxide, start doing the things that promote it. Modern physical exercise, we have to move, we have to exercise. Uh, green leafy vegetables, you know, throw in some more. I'm a, you know, I'm not a big fan of extreme diets, the hardcore carnivore, the hardcore vegan vegetarian. I think we need a balanced diet in moderation, our nutrients from sources, but most important thing is high protein, good fats, and very little or low carbohydrates. But, you know, you mentioned things like arginine. You know, 95% of the nitric oxide supplements on the market are probably geared toward or marketed as an L-arginine product. And, you know, those, those products provide absolutely zero benefit because we're never deficient in arginine. So there's no need to supplement, right? Our body makes it through the urea cycle, we get it from the breakdown of proteins. So if you're taking a nitric oxide supplement that has arginine or citrulline in it, just save your money. Those products are providing zero nitric oxide support to the human body. And then we mentioned things like beets. You know, beets really don't provide any nitric oxide. I've tested most of the commercial beets that are available at things like GNC and health food stores, and they're dead beets. We use them as placebos in our clinical trials. It's, it's a marketing, it's deception. Because, you know, there were studies early on in, like, 2012, 2013, that showed that beets, if they contained a certain amount of inorganic nitrate, if you consume them, then they could lead to an increase in nitric oxide, improve athletic performance. But again, this requires adequate uptake, it requires adequate stomach acid production, it requires the right microbiome. And again, two out of three Americans don't have the right microbiome because they're using mouthwash or fluoride. We think it's probably 88 to 90% of the people don't have the right oral microbiome. Products, even if you had everything, even if it had sufficient nitrate, less than 10% of the population would get a nitric oxide benefit from that. So, and, you know, there are companies out there selling you beets in all form factors, right? Powders and, and hydrated sugar matrix and things you see on TV. And these products provide zero nitric oxide benefit. And how do we know that? Because we test them. You know, we just got back from the A4M, and I take analytical equipment with me to the meeting, and we test other people's. And, right, and they were happy about it. They complain to the organizers. You know, I've actually been sued by companies because I test their products and reveal to the public that they don't work. I mean, and this is, I'm a scientist at heart. That's what I've done for 30 years. And so I want to reveal the truth and I want to provide the truth to consumers so that they can get a nitric oxide that actually works and provides benefit to them. And the reason for that is it's not to be malicious, but it's really to provide transparency and clarity. Because people tell me all the time, hey, I heard you on a podcast and you said nitric oxide was so important, but, you know, I've been taking this nitric oxide product for the past three or four years and I haven't noticed any difference. And I go, what are you taking? They tell me, and I go, well, of course, that product doesn't produce nitric oxide. Like, well, the company tells me it does. Like, well, the company's lying. So that right there could kill the entire nitric oxide field because of a misinterpretation of what they think is, because they think, well, I take this nitric oxide product and it doesn't improve my blood pressure, doesn't improve my sexual function, so nitric oxide doesn't work. No, that's the absolute worst interpretation. That company that sold you that product doesn't work, and they've done you and the entire world a disservice by selling you and marketing a product that they say is nitric oxide when it's not. And so what we do with our products is, if your body can't make it, then we do it for you, and we fix the reason your body can't make it. And we have tests, we have analytical equipment, and we have functional measurements to prove that these products produce nitric oxide and prove that they elicit a biological response, dilate blood vessels, improve oxygenation, improve vascular compliance, improve cognition, executive function, athletic performance, sexual function. And that's what makes us different.

Um, you do this, uh, testing on top of the tongue to look at, I think it's a precursor to nitric oxide, right? Is it nitrite that you were looking for?

Well, now, the salivary test strips, I developed those back in 2010. I abandoned the patent on those probably in 2012 or 2013 because, you know, it's old chemistry. Uh, so now I don't use those test strips anymore. I developed them, abandoned the patents. Now there's several companies out there still selling these salivary test strips that I developed. But here's the problem. And I, I got to abandon those because we realized years ago that they're false positives. So if you use that test strip and you, it turns bright pink, read that it goes, well, it's optimal, right? We're making nitric oxide. But then if you look and do kind of an assessment of that patient, they have high blood pressure, diabetes, ED, all the hallmarks of nitric oxide deficiency. And then they do that test, they go, well, look, I'm optimal, I don't need nitric oxide. So what we're finding is that people who have an active oral infection, whether it's symptomatic or asymptomatic, have false positives. Then the other thing we're finding is that the salivary levels of nitrite, which is what we're picking up through some old chemistry called the Griess reaction, is really not reflective of endothelial function, how well the endothelial layer in the NOS enzyme in the endothelium is producing nitric oxide. So there was a, a disconnect between what we were seeing in this point-of-care, non-invasive diagnostic versus, you know, systemic function, vascular endothelial function in the patient. So I tell people, you really shouldn't use the test strips. I mean, if you know what you're doing, you can kind of interrogate the pathways and figure out what may be going wrong because there's really no false negatives. If you're low, you're low, right? Then you need nitric oxide. So if the test shows that you are low, then you are, you are low. Now, the question is, why are you low? Is it because you don't have the right oral microbiome? Is it because you're on antacids? Is it because you don't have an optimal diet? Is it because you have endothelial dysfunction? So in order to fix the reason for the nitric oxide deficiency, you have to understand why that patient is deficient. And so you always have to follow that up with, you know, functional measurements, you know, and a really in-depth analysis and really creating a really clinical picture of that individual patient.

Using the lozenge that you guys produce that helps release nitric oxide directly into your bloodstream, right? So if you did a test that was negative, right? It has almost no color in it. The person is very low on nitrite. That's the precursor to nitric oxide. So after you got more nitric oxide gas in your bloodstream, would that change to that test in any way?

No, of course it would because we're actually producing both NO, which has then oxidized back to nitrite. So we, we're picking up, we're delivering what we're measuring, right?

Okay. So you have released both nitrite and nitric oxide?

That's right.

Okay. What I tell people today is like, look, you can test if you want to. I think testing is important, and there are many things we need to test for. But in terms of nitric oxide, there's only two people in the world who need nitric oxide. There's the people who are sick and want to get well. They're the people who are well and don't want to get sick. That's everybody. One of those two, then you should take nitric oxide. I've been taking my product for 20 years, maybe longer, early prototypes of it. And I don't take it because I need it. I take it because I don't want to need it. Proactive instead of reactive. I don't want to, you know, the older I get, I just turn 51 this year, and I've got the vascular age of a 32-year-old. And it's not because of probably my diet and lifestyle as we were talking about before we got on here. I'm on an airplane every week. I've traveled millions of miles all around the world. I give 50, 60 lectures a year. I'm in hotels, I'm in airplanes. I don't always eat right. But no matter what, no matter where I am, I take my nitric oxide. But, you know, I'm also health-conscious and I exercise, I watch what I eat, and I try to make healthy decisions. I take this nitric oxide again because I don't want to lose this age-related decline and get ED or or hypertension or diabetes or exercise intolerance or or dementia or Alzheimer's. I mean, the basic science and the clinical data reveal that without nitric oxide, that you're on a fast path to all of those. And if you can prevent the loss of nitric oxide and you can maintain some nitric oxide production and signaling, you can prevent all of those. And that's, that's my objective, not just for my own, my family, but for everybody around the world.

That's true. You take it twice a day or once a day?

Well, you know, typically I take, so I start out, I do an 18-hour fast every day. And so our products don't break the fast. So when I wake up in the morning, you know, my daily routine is, I wake up before the sun comes up. I take the, the beet powder, our inob beet, when I wake up, and that's kind of my first nitric oxide boost.

So you just said the beets probably don't work. So what, what's the reason you have this beet powder?

Well, the beets, we, we actually manufacture beets that actually work. So we, we start with a, with the right soil conditions, we ferment these beets to pre-convert them so we're not dependent upon the oral microbiome. And then we add electrolytes and, and mitochondrial ATP to that product. So now we make a concentrated beet powder that we remove the oxalates, the beet pulp, the beet color, the beet taste. So then we got white powder that we put in water, and then you mix it up and take it as a shot.

So that starts my day with increased circulation, oxygen. I sit in an infrared sauna for 30 minutes at 170 degrees. Well, before that, I do 100 push-ups, 100 squats in less than three minutes. So that gets my blood flowing. I go sit in the sauna, do a cold plunge, 37 degrees for three minutes, and then I watch the sun come up and resets my circadian rhythm. And then I take my supplements. So to answer your question, I take the beets in the morning. Then in the afternoon, I'll take the lozenge, and that gives me 24-hour nitric oxide coverage.

I see. Wow. That's 24 hours.

24 hours. Yeah. For to kind of maintain optimal levels. You know, but for people who have maybe metabolic disease, ED, high blood pressure, which I don't, you may need to take one every four to six hours. You know, everybody's individualized and you just got to titrate it in based on your own individual kind of needs or metabolic demands.

Yeah. So are you saying it's pretty hard for people to get adequate nitric oxide without taking a supplement like what you developed?

It is, just because the world we live in and the food that we eat is not nutrient-dense, and there's so many environmental toxins that completely shut down nitric oxide production. So I think it's, it's one of those things that, you know, it's like a daily vitamin C. You know, we need vitamin, number one, humans can't make vitamin C, so we have to supplement with it. Uh, humans can make nitric oxide, but they lose their ability to make it over time. So we have to supplement. I think it's, yeah, it's very difficult to, even in the best conditions, and I've tried to adapt my life. I live on 800 acres out in the middle of nowhere. So I'm completely isolated. We raise our own food, we raise our own beef. We don't buy many groceries from the grocery store. And I control the environment. But even that, even when I do soil analysis and grow nutrient-dense, herbicide, pesticide-free food, and raise our own beef with no antibiotics, no hormones, anything like that, it's still, because I travel so much, it's, it's very difficult to maintain adequate optimal nitric oxide. And I'm in a very, you know, controlled environment where most people who live in, you know, urban areas, in cities, where they're exposed to, you know, air pollution and, and 5G and all types of stuff, it's, it's almost impossible.

Yeah. And I know you're a huge researcher. What kind of research have you done or have you seen that's looking at different aspects of what nitric oxide is doing for our body?

Well, you know, it's been an evolution over the past 30, 40 years because when nitric oxide was first discovered, it was thought to be just a simple vasodilator, but it just dilated blood vessels and improved blood flow and tissue oxygenation. But today, we understand that it's the signal that tells our own stem cells to mobilize and differentiate, right? The older we get, the less nitric oxide we make, the less we heal and recover from injury or replace and repair dysfunctional cells. I mean, that's your world, right? The regenerative medicine. So how do we allow for regenerative medicine? How do we, which humans by nature are regenerative? So if you lose the ability to make nitric oxide, we're not running out of stem cells. The older we get, we're running out of the signal that tells our stem cells to mobilize and differentiate. And that's what nitric oxide does. Number two, we are running out of stem cells at the same time. So in bone marrow derived, certainly there's less. But most people accumulate more mesenchymal stem cells throughout the body. It's just less and less. But yeah, without the signals, it's even way worse. Yeah. And then, you know, it's the end. Nitric oxide is activates an enzyme called telomerase, which prevents telomere shortening. Now, we know again, this discovery won a Nobel Prize about a decade ago, or maybe longer, but the telomeres are the ends of the chromosomes. That with each cellular replication, if the telomeres get shorter, that's associated and correlated with shorter lifespan. Longer telomeres, longer lifespan. So nitric oxide activates telomerase, prevents telomere shortening. Then number three, nitric oxide controls and activates mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial activity. Wow. And mitochondria are really the, well, not they are the energy-producing organelles of the cell. So if we lose the ability to produce nitric oxide, we have lower numbers of mitochondria per cell, generating less ATP, your cellular energy, less efficient. And now, if we can restore nitric oxide, so we have more mitochondria, we're generating more energy, and cells perform better. So every aspect about wellness, longevity, is dependent upon the body's ability to produce nitric oxide, mobilizing stem cells, preventing telomere shortening, and activating mitochondria biogenesis and cellular energy production. Wow. That's profound. It's foundational for regenerative medicine, foundational for longevity.

Yeah. And I know you were looking into different disease conditions and, um, talk a little bit about what areas did you look into.

Yeah. So, you know, again, we touched on this. I've been in basic science research for 25 years. I'm trained as a drug discovery biochemist. So I developed dietary supplements based on our discoveries about 20 years ago. But really, that wasn't my overall objective. Is to develop dietary supplements. Are the wacko West? My objective was again to understand the mechanism of disease through basic science to where we could develop rational therapies to address chronic disease. And we discovered that nitric oxide is affecting a number of age-related chronic diseases. So we have a drug discovery program through my company called Brian Therapeutics. And so we're making nitric oxide drug therapies. And the first indication we're going to go after is ischemic heart disease. And so ischemic heart disease, there's 33 million Americans living with ischemic heart disease, about a quarter of a billion worldwide. And these are patients that have an obstruction in the coronary arteries from atherosclerosis, right? So ischemia, as you know, has reduced blood flow, has reduced blood flow because there's an obstruction or stenosis of the coronary. So the cornerstone therapy for these patients is isosorbide and nitroglycerin, right? It's an organic nitrate that boosts nitric oxide that dilates the coronary arteries. And so these drugs have been used for about 180 years, back to the days of Alfred Nobel. But the problem with these drugs is you develop tolerance to them. Patients lose their ability to respond to these drugs. In fact, 50% less response after the first, second drug is given, second dose from the first. And then the long-term outcome studies are actually worse. So what we want to do is, is provide a better, safer therapy for these patients. And so our nitric oxide releasing lozenge will dilate the coronary arteries, improve coronary blood flow, alleviate the ischemic pain, the angina. And we're actually seeing plaque regression, we're cleaning out the lining of the coronary arteries and reversing disease.

Do we know how well it's mitigating the inflammation? It's preventing platelet aggregation?

It's preventing platelet aggregation. Nitric oxide is also anti-inflammatory. It's anti-inflammatory. In fact, a number of my patents are on the method of reducing inflammation through nitric oxide. We can see about a 35% reduction in C-reactive protein after 30 days. But it's preventing the upregulation of the adhesion molecules, which are responsible for the extravasation of fatty acids, cholesterol, and the plaque deposition. So it's mitigating the inflammation, oxidative stress, immune dysfunction that we see in the advancement of atherosclerosis. So we can actually see a reversal of disease, and we're improving the endothelial function. So that's number one. And I start, hopefully, start those drug studies. We've had the pre-meetings with the FDA and have clear regulatory guidance. So I'm, I'm hopeful within a year, two years max, we'll have a drug approved and on the market. But then we're going after Alzheimer's. You know, Alzheimer's is a huge, uh, problem. 50 million people. It's expected to triple in the next six years. People are living with Alzheimer's. And nitric oxide addresses everything we know about Alzheimer's because Alzheimer's is reduced blood flow, right? Through PET scans or functional MRI, there's ischemia and focal ischemia in certain regions of the brain. We get insulin resistance, you can't get glucose into the cells. And then we get molding of proteins. So what does nitric oxide do? Well, it dilates the cerebral arteries, it improves glucose uptake, improves insulin sensitivity, it prevents protein misfolding. So we don't get the beta-amyloid plaque, we don't get the tangles, simply by restoring nitric oxide. So that's our Alzheimer's drug. This is probably a, a six to eight-year study. But I think it will completely eradicate Alzheimer's disease.

Oh my goodness. That's quite a statement because billions of dollars have been poured into this and there has been no solution yet.

You know why? Because they're going after the wrong target. You know, these drug companies have have misspent billions of public money on going after the consequence of disease, making monoclonal antibodies against beta-amyloid plaque and tangles is the absolute worst idea in the world. And there's a reason these drugs don't work. It's because they're targeting the consequence. Tangles and beta-amyloid do not cause Alzheimer's. They're markers of Alzheimer's. So let's target the root cause of Alzheimer's. Let's restore blood flow, let's improve insulin sensitivity, let's get glucose into the cell, allow that cell to do its job so you don't get protein misfolding, and you can maintain cognition. So there's a reason these drug companies have failed, and there's a reason there's been no effective therapy for Alzheimer's. They're chasing the wrong.

What have you seen in people who already have Alzheimer's and when they start taking nitric oxide?

Well, we've seen this clinically. So we, we get baseline PET scans or functional MRIs looking at cerebral blood flow, and then we give them the standard cognitive test. And so we get baseline data. We give them our lozenge for 30 days. We see an improvement in cerebral, um, perfusion, and they actually improve on the cognition test. And the improvement in cognition correlates with the improvement in perfusion of the brain. And we published in 2009 that nitric oxide is what allows for glucose uptake into the cell. It potentiates insulin signaling. So Alzheimer's is diabetes type 3. It's a metabolic disease. It's a vascular disease. Nitric oxide mitigates the metabolic disease and improves glucose uptake. It improves cerebral blood flow. So we're affecting the vascular portion of Alzheimer's. Nitric oxide addresses the root cause of dementia and Alzheimer's.

What about for people who don't have Alzheimer's and just want better functioning brain and, uh, better cognitive function?

Well, you got to maintain adequate blood flow, right? It's like to have adequate sexual function, we got to increase blood flow. To have adequate cognitive function, we got to have adequate blood flow.

Have you done any testing of, you know, so normal subjects to see if their brain function is enhanced?

Yeah, in fact, just last week at A4M, there was a, there was a company there called MindVew, I believe. And what they do is they have this virtual reality set, and it's based on executive function, response time, and things like that. But it's about a three-minute test. And so I always like to test this product and see what new diagnostics or functional measurements are out there that people are using or companies are using for cognition, executive function, things like that. So they go, look, you really can't move the needle. This is kind of a static situation. But if we, if we change you and put you on a regimen for 30, 60, 90 days, you may be able to move the needle a little bit. So like, go, let's put it into that. So I did it. I was in Vegas, I was a little bit hungover, I was dehydrated, it was early in the morning, but I wasn't, I was still probably 69th percentile. And I go, okay, I'm gonna take a lozenge and I'm gonna come back in 20 minutes. I'm gonna repeat this test. They go, it's probably a waste of time because it's, we don't see anything move that best. So I go back 20 minutes later, and now I'm like 90th percentile.

Oh my goodness.

Executive function improved, my response time improved, everything, cognition improved. And they just sit there with an open mouth and they go, oh my God, what? We've never seen anything like that. Wow. So now we're actually going to do a controlled study and take some of their patient cohorts that they have baseline data on. Now let's put them on the lozenge. Let's not change anything else. Let's just, whatever they're doing, keep doing. But let's just put them on the lozenge and let's just measure their response time, in the response over time. Let's give it, you know, measure them a week later, measure them 30 days later, and let's, let's see what we're doing.

Wow. That's really exciting.

Yeah. That test, we do it with a CV profiler, looking at vascular elasticity, vascular compliance, about a 30% improvement within 20 minutes of taking the lozenge. So the point here is, no matter what functional measure we do, this and get baseline data, when patients take our lozenge, it always moves the needle. There's never been a test that nitric oxide, our products that produce nitric oxide, move the needle. And we do it with our competitive products, the so-called other nitric oxide products out there, flatline. They, in fact, sometimes they get worse.

Really? Wow. And what other conditions have you studied looking at effects?

Well, for our drug study, we're at topical drugs for diabetic ulcers and non-healing wounds. You know, this was really started by my dad, who's a paraplegic from a car accident in 1984. So most of my adult life, I've been treating my dad's decubitus ulcers, pressure wounds. And, you know, about 10 years ago, he had a four-year-old non-healing wound, a sacral ulcer that was osteonecrotic, osteomyelitis, septic. And I took him to all the best wound care centers I could. And every single wound care doctor told me we would never.

Heal this wound on the 65-year-old diabetic paraplegic patient, right? So, very deep wound. The bone is, is going dead. Yeah, yeah, I, I could see the bone, um, in his right butt cheek. And so, I just refused to accept this. So, I started making a nitric oxide releasing gauze. And so, every day, twice a day, I would do a wet-to-dry dressing and change this wound. And within a period of about six months, I was seeing about 40 to 50% wound closure. For the first time in the history of this four-year-old wound, we were actually seeing it get better.

So then, with that, I started doing stem cells. We did the liposuction and then injected stromovascular fraction in and around the wound. And then, within 10 days, got about 80% closure. Wow. And then I took him to a surgeon, and they did a surgical flap and basically healed this four-year-old non-healing wound in a matter of less than a year.

So then, I started making a topical nitric oxide. Today, we sell it as a skincare product, the serum. But, you know, we're taking that same technology and developing topical drugs for it. Because there's 65,000 Americans every year that die in nursing homes from infected wounds that become septic. And people are dying from this, and it's unacceptable. Because now, with our topical nitric oxide, we can heal that wound, kills the infection inside the wound, it allows for hyperemia, and you get tissue granulation, and the wound heals. I mean, nitric oxide is the solution for non-healing diabetic ulcers, non-healing wounds. In fact, we haven't seen a wound that we haven't been able to heal with a nitric oxide.

Yeah, well, that's wonderful. So, those are the big ones, you know, heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetic, Dr., diabetic ulcers. But then we go to things like heart failure. You know, we have really good data in heart failure, specifically heart failure with peripartum infarction or H-I-F-F, pulmonary hypertension. We've done studies in the cath lab doing right heart cath. We can, the lozenge reduces pulmonary pressures, restores right heart function. It's really, I think.

What about for something like COPD? Did you see any difference? Yeah, COPD, um, congestive heart failure, things like that. Because nitric oxide is not just a vasodilator, it's a pulmonary, it's a, it's a bronchodilator. So, even in asthma, COPD, it dilates the bronchioles. So now you can improve oxygenation, tissue uptake, you can meet ventilation to perfusion in the lungs and match this. Because, as you know, in pulmonary disease, there's always a mismatch in ventilation to perfusion. And nitric oxide can match that and allow for better tissue oxygenation.

Okay. I know you give extensive lectures at A4M and training programs and you talk about various organ systems and the effect of nitric oxide. So, can you speak on a few other organ systems that you've, uh, taught physicians about?

Well, mainly it's cardiovascular because every age-related chronic disease has a vascular component. So, if we can improve blood flow to that end organ, mitigate the inflammation, oxidative stress, and immune dysfunction, then that organ gets better. That's what nitric oxide does. So, yeah, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, uh, dementia, Alzheimer's, mild cognitive impairment, even just in the healthy population, improving performance, whether it's athletic performance, sexual performance, or cognitive performance. Really, what we're trying to do is educate and inform people on the importance of nitric oxide so that they can be proactive instead of reactive. And as you know, when you see patients, you see sick patients. So, they don't make changes until they have a crisis. They've had a heart attack, they had the ED, now they want to make changes because it's fear-based. But I think we have to change the narrative and inform and educate on how to prevent, how to address these issues before they manifest as symptoms. And I think that's what my goal is. And my frustration is, even in organizations like A4M, which I'm a huge fan of, they're leading this, you know, anti-aging medicine. But they have speakers there that are paid by companies to come in, give lectures on nitric oxide. And I go to these, number one, these people have no idea what nitric oxide is. They've never published a single paper. And they're educating this audience. They're misinforming them and providing just unbelievable misinformation on nitric oxide. So, these people who are paying thousands of dollars to attend this conference and get quality education are being miseducated, misinformed by people who have no business being behind, uh, a lecture and speaking on a subject that they have absolutely no business thinking.

Yeah, gosh. Um, another aspect I know you've talked about, um, which I'm interested in, is the antimicrobial aspects of nitric oxide. Um, and that's very interesting because I, when I go travel on the plane, uh, if I know I'm around all these people, then I'm going to pop an extra nitric oxide. So, what are your thoughts on what's so, what, yeah, what do you think of this?

Well, look, mechanistically, we know exactly how nitric oxide's working. So, in terms of its antiviral, nitric oxide prevents virus from replicating. It's the flu, it's the coronavirus, whether it's SARS CoV-1, SARS CoV-2, which was COVID-19. Nitric oxide is what prevents the virus from replicating, specifically the respiratory viruses. They bind to the ACE2 receptors. So, in patients who are nitric oxide deficient, they get an upregulation of the ACE2 receptor. If we give nitric oxide, and we saw this during our clinical trial during previous four years, that we could downregulate the ACE2 receptor. So, there's no target for the spike protein or other viruses or other targets of viruses to bind to. And then, if we have a good circulatory system, we can mobilize an immune response. We go to the site of infection or attachment, generate nitric oxide, and prevent the virus from replicating and propagating throughout the body. So, that's how it works. Antiviral, antibacterial is that when we produce nitric oxide, it binds to the iron-sulfur centers of bacteria and completely shuts down their respiration. So, we suffocate the virus by producing nitric oxide. So, again, if your body can't make nitric oxide, you're susceptible to viral infection, you're susceptible to bacterial infection. And these infections always occur in people with comorbidities, high blood pressure, diabetes, previous heart attack, the elderly. Those are the people who can't make nitric oxide. But if we can provide the body with a source of nitric oxide, now we can prevent from getting an illness from a virus or a bacteria. I haven't been sick, lost a day of work from a viral infection or any sickness whatsoever in more than 25 years. Wow. And it's not that I'm, I live in a, in a sterile world. I'm like you. I'm on an airplane, I'm in crowded places, I travel all over the world. So, I'm subjected to this. But I support my microbiome. I don't take antibiotics. I don't use the, the aseptic hand sanitizer they give you on a plane. Those are making you actually immunocompromised. So, I want to support my microbiome. I don't want to destroy it.

Right. And, you know, what you said about the antimicrobial properties is backed up by the research that you've done, right? You've actually conducted clinical research on people who are very sick and you saw some remarkable results.

Yeah. So, we've done this in, in cultures of, um, you know, wounds that are chronically infected and non-healing. And, you know, we can plate these bacteria, we put our nitric oxide on there, and it completely eradicates the infectious bacteria and the pathogens that are found in most wounds. Viruses, again, we had a clinical study during, uh, the previous pandemic, and we were getting people better. We were improving tissue oxygenation, people weren't getting sick. And that was our goal, to keep people out of the hospital from viral infection. But as we all know, the disease changed, and we, we aborted the trials back several years ago. But what the beauty of that trial is, Dr. Kong, is that we, through our drug safety, treated over 600 really sick, highly susceptible, highly medicated patients, and not a single safety signal in any of those patients. So, the nitric oxide that we're delivering, first, do no harm. The nitric oxide we're delivering is extremely safe, even in the sickest, most vulnerable population on the, on the earth. And we were making them better. So, now, as we move forward through drug studies, we've overcome the biggest hurdle for drugs, and that's safety. So, now we're off to the races. And, you know, I think, I don't think, you know, there's three levels of conviction. There's, I think, I believe, and I know. I'm to the, I know conviction. I know these drugs will change the world and change the way that you physicians treat patients for the next hundred years.

Yeah. So, grateful that you are developing, you know, putting all the efforts and resources into doing this. Um, what are the potential side effects, if any, of these, um, nitric oxide supplements you develop?

Well, there's two signs of toxicity for nitric oxide, specifically. There's, there's hypotension or a drop in blood pressure, an unsafe drop in blood pressure. And there's a condition called methemoglobinemia, where if you take too much, it'll oxidize the heme iron of hemoglobin, and you become cyanotic, blue around the lips, and you basically compromise the ability of the red blood cell to carry oxygen. And we monitor this all during our drug study, uh, in these really sick patients. And there was never an unsafe drop in blood pressure. There was no first-dose effect. And there was no appreciable accumulation of methemoglobin in these patients. Like I say, if you take 10, 12 of my lozenges at a time, I can't promise you that you're not going to develop syncope and, you know, lose perfusion pressure in the brain and perhaps pass out. But when taking these as instructed and as indicated, they're completely safe. What are the side effects? Well, more energy, better sexual function, uh, better focus, cognition. Those are the top three that we hear from people taking our products.

Wonderful. Um, the last thing I want to, um, talk about, of course, because of my, uh, passion about stem cells, is how did you come upon the interaction between nitric oxide and stem cells? And what did you find?

Well, there was a study published in 1992 in Nature Medicine. And this was looking at the, uh, mice that we basically made them deficient in the enzyme that makes nitric oxide. And this group discovered that the number of stem cells present in these mice wasn't declined, there wasn't lower. They just lost the ability to mobilize this. So, that was really the first paper showing that nitric oxide is the requisite signal, is the signal that's required for stem cell mobilization and differentiation. So, we kind of, we kind of built upon that science. And then we took, again, in, in clinical data at Texas Heart Institute, when I was at the Texas Medical Center, and we were analyzing patients with the post-MI, post-myocardial infarction patients, and getting stem cell injections into the left ventricle, and figuring out, could you improve ejection fraction, improve contractility in post-MI patients? And what we found was, we never published this, but the patients who actually got better from left ventricular stem cell injections were the ones who had the highest level of nitric oxide. If these patients were so devoid in any nitric oxide, then they didn't get better. And actually, some patients got worse. Because I think what happens is, if you don't provide the signal and create that niche for the stem cells that you're deploying endogenously or deploying, you know, IV or intraventricularly, then they don't know where to go and they don't know what to become. So, now we've, in anybody who's practicing regenerative medicine, where we're trying to mobilize autologous stem cells or deploy autologous or mesenchymal stem cells or exosomes or any type of messenger cells, if we give nitric oxide before to dilate the blood vessels, open up the microcirculation, now you're going to get better deployment, better delivery of those cells. More importantly, they're going to know where to go and what to become.

Beautiful. Um, so good to hear you say it. It is that I'm, me trying to convey that. Uh, you said it much more eloquently. And definitely, I've been using that in conjunction with stem cell therapy for quite a few years now. So, I'm grateful for your contribution into my practice.

Yeah. And I thank you. The basic science, look, as, as you know, the basic science means nothing if we can't translate that into clinical practice and give you practitioners the tools you need to make your patients better. So, again, thank you for all you do and for making your patients better.

Oh, thank you, Dr. Nathan. Yeah, it's been a fabulous conversation. And I'm so appreciative of you coming on to my podcast again and sharing in all this information. Just, there's just so much, uh, knowledge that you, you're bringing to the forefront. And of course, your innovation and your wonderful human spirit. So, I appreciate you and I look forward to hopefully another conversation in the future.

I'll do it again. I got a new book coming out in February. It's called "The Secret of Nitric Oxide: Bringing Nitric Oxide to Life." And, well, really, it's part autobiographical. It's about my journey through basic science and academia and translation of these discoveries into clinical medicine, into product technology. So, be on the lookout for that in in February. Uh, I refer people to my YouTube channel. We'll post, you know, these interviews. And then, get Dr. Nathan S. Bryan, nitric oxide, or my educational website, Dr. Nathan S. Bryan.com.

Yeah, and you have a nice, um, Instagram.

Yeah, and you can find me on social media, Dr. Nathan S. Bryan on, uh, Instagram. I'm on LinkedIn, Twitter, at Dr. Nitric. Um, yeah, most social platforms.

Yeah, wonderful, wonderful. I follow you. I enjoy your content. And again, thank you for your contribution to all of our health.

Well, thank you so much. Hope to see you soon.

Hope so too. Okay. Bye, Dr. Nathan.

Bye-bye.