What is Arginine?

  Arginine is a semi-essential amino acid that is generally found in red meat and other high cholesterol foods.  Your body needs at least 3 grams of Arginine per day in order to live.  Recently, Arginine has been shown to offer benefits to people with risk factors including:  arteriolosclerosis, atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction and many other health challenges.

How Does It Work?

  Arginine is a precursor to nitric oxide, meaning that the body converts Arginine into nitric oxide gas.  Nitric oxide is then used by the body to do many different things.  In fact, the discovery of the Nitric Oxide Pathway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1998.

Nobel Prize Winning Research

  In 1998, three Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of the Nitric Oxide Pathway.  They were able to demonstrate that the body uses Nitric Oxide gas to make blood vessels relax,elastic and dilated, a significant finding in the battle against heart disease and other vascular diseases.

What Is Nitric Oxide?

  Over 20,000 articles in the medical literature since 1980 attest that “absolutely everything in the body depends on it.” Its function in human physiology is so important that the American Academy of Science named Nitric Oxide the “Molecule of the year” in 1992. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to scientists who began the research on Nitric Oxide in 1998 and now NO has been referred to as “The Molecule of the Millennium”.

Dr. Jonathan S. Stamler, a professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center, put it best when he said of Nitric Oxide:

“It does everything, everywhere. You cannot name a major cellular response or physiological effect in which [Nitric Oxide] is not implicated today. It’s involved in complex behavioral changes in the brain, airway relaxation, beating of the heart, dilation of blood vessels, regulation of intestinal movement, function of blood cells, the immune system, even how fingers and arms move.”

  There are three types of NO. Endothelial-derived NO diffuses out of endothelial cells (cells lining arteries and veins) and into smooth muscle cells of arteries enhancing relaxation and other properties of vascular physiology. Endothelial-derived NO also functions in platelets (blood cells responsible for blood clots) to inhibit aggregation or blood clotting. Brain-derived NO affects several types of nerve cells and appears to be important in neurotransmitter pathways in both the central as well as peripheral nervous system and regulates the production and release of many hormones. Macrophage-derived NO is important in the immune system. This type of NO helps macrophages, a type of immune cell, kill bacteria and tumor cells. So, NO is important to the nervous system, the immune system and the vascular system, which supplies nutrients to all parts of the body. Arginine, when combined with Oxygen, forms NO. Arginine, is a great all natural source of all forms of NO.

What Does Nitric Oxide Do For Blood Vessels

In a healthy endothelium, Nitric Oxide:

-Keeps vessels pliable and elastic

-Keeps blood flowing smoothly

-Keeps platelets calm and prevents them from sticking to the vessel wall

-Keeps white blood cells calm and prevents them from sticking to the vessel wall

-Regulates oxidative enzymes in the cell, preventing oxidation

-Reduces growth and multiplication of muscle cells that thicken the vessel wall

-Slows plaque growth and suppresses atherosclerosis

-Melts away or shrinks plaque that already exists

Every major disease process today is directly or indirectly related to deficiency in  NO, especially with a population with many risk factors  Diabetes, Hypertension, Hyperlipidemia, Hypercholesterolemia, Cancer, Peripheral Vascular Disease, Coronary Artery Disease, Sickle cell anemia, Scleroderma, Renal Failure, Pulmonary Hypertension and Atherosclerosis are all associated with decreased levels of NO. With the exception of Cancer, where NO functions in the immune system, most of these disease processes involve the vascular system and Endothelial derived Nitric Oxide (EDNO).