The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Reversal: How I Reversed My Clogged Arteries in 3 Months
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
Genesis 2:15
But the woman looked upon its fruit and saw that it was
Good for food
A delight to the eyes and
To be desired to make one wise.
In our world today, so many of our so-called foods are processed, genetically modified and polluted with herbicides and pesticides. These foods eventually cause disease as they are toxic to our bodies. These foods are decorated and marketed to be a delight to our eyes, they look like delicious foods and give one enjoyment, status and belonging. They are convenient, cheap, accessible and fast. But also right beside this tree of knowledge of good and evil that brought death was the tree of life.
I asked my 71 year old church friend, “Fred, what caused your diabetes?” He looked a little perplexed. I said, “The answer is quite simple.” He then clued in and replied, “Oh, sugary foods.” What kind of sugary foods? White rice, white flour - processed of its bran covering (fibre), oils and many vitamins. Added refined sugars as well as sweeteners. Also, most desserts, fried foods, heated oils, and sugary drinks. The simple answer: Food caused his diabetes.
We face the same choice that Adam and Eve faced in Eden daily and the cells in our bodies record these decisions over decades and manifest as disease.
Nitric Oxide: The Spark of Life
Oxygen is life-giving. Nitric oxide rejuvenates.
Maimonides
In the 1970s, vascular scientists noticed that when the endothelium, the one-cell lining of the blood vessels, was intact, the arteries relaxed. Remove or damage the endothelium, and the vessels hardened in spasm. Something invisible was being released by the endothelial cells. They named this unidentified compound, EDRF - endothelium-derived relaxing factor.
Ferid Murad — 1977: Showed that nitrovasodilators (e.g., nitroglycerin) release nitric oxide, activating guanylate cyclase and relaxing smooth muscle, relieving chest pain. NobelPrize.org
Robert F. Furchgott — 1980: Discovered a mysterious substance which he named endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) was made by endothelial cells.
Louis J. Ignarro — 1986: Deduced that EDRF is nitric oxide, at that time considered a toxic gas that came from car exhausts, a smog pollutant, and an unstable chemical that lasted only seconds.
In 1998, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to these three: Murad, Furchgott, and Ignarro, for the discovery of nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.
Nitric oxide relaxes arteries, lowers blood pressure, prevents clotting, calms inflammation and signals endothelial repair. It’s your own body’s spark of life. It is produced in the blood vessels, brain cells and the skin.
When someone has chest pain from a blocked artery, they can spray nitroglycerin under their tongue and get relief as it turns into nitric oxide in the heart and expands the vessels. Ironically, Alfred Nobel made a fortune with the nitroglycerin used to make dynamite. However, dynamite was not only used for his original intent for mining and railroads, but also in war and destruction. He became known as the merchant of death.
Lauder Brunton, a distinguished British physician, had found in 1867 that nitrates were effective in relieving pains in angina pectoris. When Nobel’s physicians recommended nitroglycerine as a remedy for his heart pain (angina) in 1890, he declined it, most likely as he believed the industrial nitroglycerin he was working with was causing his headaches..
In order to leave a good legacy, he bequeathed his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes in 1895 and one of those prizes was to be in Physiology or Medicine. He passed away a year later from a hemorrhagic stroke at age 63.
Nitric Oxide: The Fork in the Road
The body has its miracle gas but the fork can supply it with a dietary backup system.
Dr. Kevin Ham
This nitric oxide is produced in the body but it also has its backup supply from the diet. The power of nitric oxide is its ability to do many things but in particular to widen the highways and roads to deliver the life-giving blood you have, which consists of not only red blood cells but also your white blood cells which make up your immune system as well as platelets, nutrients and hormones. If the highways are constricted like a traffic jam, the delivery trucks, emergency services cannot get to every cell in your body. Only one cell or one organ needs to be compromised to affect one’s health.
1. The Internal Pathway
The body converts the amino acid, L-arginine into nitric oxide through an enzyme in the endothelial cells, eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase).
This enzyme is stimulated by:
Shear stress from exercise: High intensity interval training (HIIT), and deep nasal breathing
Antioxidants called polyphenols: Found in berries, cocoa, green tea, red wine
L-citrulline and L-arginine. Watermelon, legumes (beans) and nuts
Omega 3s. Fish, algae
Sleep. Nighttime nitric oxide pulses
eNOS is inhibited by:
Smoking
Diabetes
Oils and Lipid Peroxidation. Heated and processed oils (fried foods) oxidize lipids, which damage endothelial membranes, consume NO and destabilize eNOS
Glycation (from high sugar). High glucose glycosylates proteins to create advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), which damage endothelial cells and create oxidative stress
Oxidative stress. Free radicals, processed meats, excess fat especially visceral fat around the organs, heavy metals, high blood pressure, make eNOS produce superoxide instead of nitric oxide, causing further damage. This is called eNOS uncoupling. eNOS under oxidative stress becomes harmful rather than helpful.
Aging. eNOS activity declines with age
Inflammation
When your body is in a state of inflammation, (measured by such blood markers as hsCRP, homocysteine and in the heart, myeloperoxidase and Lp-PLA2), instead of making nitric oxide, eNOS makes super oxide which creates a vicious cycle of endothelial damage.
So first thing is to focus on getting your inflammatory markers down by eliminating the foods and environment that cause the above lipid peroxidation, glycation, oxidative stress and inflammation and replace them with foods, exercise and rest (including sleep) that can restore an anti-inflammatory body chemistry that can heal the endothelial cells.
So largely lifestyle habits in diet, exercise and sleep regulate good nitric oxide production that allows blood vessels to expand and allow your life-giving blood to flow with its delivery trucks of oxygen and nutrients and garbage trucks to take away your metabolic waste products.
2. The Diet Pathway
The diet pathway bypasses damaged endothelium. It’s like a jumpstart charge to a battery (eNOS) that is low in energy. It’s especially important in diabetes and cardiovascular disease when eNOS is impaired. It’s a 5 step process.
Step 1: Eating Foods Rich in Nitrates (NO₃⁻)
Where from? Leafy greens (spinach, arugula, lettuce), beets, celery, and other vegetables.
How much? 300 mg of nitrate in one meal seems to be the threshold to create enough nitric oxide effect (see below for list of nitrate-rich foods)
What happens? Dietary nitrate is absorbed from the gut into the bloodstream → plasma nitrate levels rise.
Inhibitors: Low-vegetable diets, high processed foods, and cooking/boiling (can leach out nitrates).
I try to eat salad greens in every meal, even putting arugula toppings on my sourdough bread, and my steel-cut oatmeal as nitric oxide is provided for about 90 minutes after chewing these leaves thoroughly.
Step 2: Concentration in Salivary Glands
About 25% of circulating nitrate is actively taken up by the salivary glands.
Salivary glands concentrate nitrate 10× higher than plasma in blood.
Inhibitors: Dehydration (reduces saliva flow), certain drugs (e.g., proton pump inhibitors may alter salivary nitrate handling).
This highly concentrated nitrate is slowly released by the salivary glands into your saliva for the next 90 minutes. Just consider the steady stream of nitric oxide coursing from mouth to blood to cells. This is the difference between chewing your veggies and just blending them and drinking it without mixing with your saliva. Also by chewing you increase the blood flow to your head and brain.
Step 3: Reduction to Nitrite (NO₂⁻) by Oral Bacteria
In the mouth, commensal anaerobic bacteria (on tongue and in crypts) reduce nitrate → nitrite.
This is essential: humans don’t have the enzyme for this conversion — we rely on bacteria.
Inhibitors:
Antibacterial mouthwash (kills bacteria that perform this step).
Chlorinated water (tap water) can reduce bacterial activity.
Poor oral microbiome health (antibiotics, lack of diversity).
Some toothpastes alter the oral bacteria
Again chewing here allows the bacteria to break down the nitrates in your veggies into nitrites which can then be turned into nitric oxide in the stomach below.
Step 4: Swallowing Nitrite & Stomach Conversion
Saliva rich in nitrite is swallowed.
In the acidic stomach, nitrite → nitric oxide (NO) + other reactive nitrogen species.
This NO diffuses locally (helping with gut defense) and into circulation.
Inhibitors:
Low stomach acid (hypochlorhydria, PPIs) → less conversion to NO.
Alkaline antacids.
Proton pump inhibitor drugs for ulcers
Step 5: Circulation and Tissue Conversion
Remaining plasma nitrite can be converted to NO in tissues, especially low-oxygen environments (like exercising muscle, ischemic heart tissue).
This provides a “backup system” for NO when oxygen or eNOS is limited.
Inhibitors: Oxidative stress rapidly degrades NO, smoking (scavenges NO), high-fat processed diets (increase superoxide).
Exercise enhances nitrite conversion to nitric oxide in tissues due to lower oxygenation as you exercise, which then expands your blood vessels for more blood and oxygen as you breathe faster and blood circulates more thoroughly in the muscles that require oxygen and nutrients to produce energy.
Highest Nitrate Foods
Foods targeted for heart health must be chewed and digested as nature intended.
Dr. Kevin Ham
How Long Dietary Nitrate Powers NO
15–30 minutes after eating a nitrate-rich meal (e.g., beet juice or leafy greens), plasma nitrate levels start rising.
Within ~1–3 hours, plasma nitrates and nitrites peak significantly. In one beet juice study, nitrates rose about 6-fold; nitrites 4-fold.
The half-life of elevated plasma nitrates is 5–10 hours, meaning enhanced NO availability persists over several hours. MDPI
Approximately 25% of plasma nitrate is recycled via the salivary glands, becoming up to 10× concentrated in saliva versus plasma. Oral bacteria then reduce it to nitrite, which converts to NO in the stomach.
Food as Medicine
Food is not merely pleasure, hobby or calories.
Food is chemistry. Food is pharmacology. Food is medicine.
So not only blood vessel rejuvenation but also a symphony of foods work together to lower all the various offenders that produce disease. Reminder from last week’s Reversing heart disease protocol.
Pomegranate juice: reduced carotid IMT by 30% in one year
Garlic (aged extract): lowered coronary plaque volume by 8% in diabetics over 12 months
Oats & flaxseed: soluble fiber binding cholesterol, lowering LDL, calming inflammation
Berries: antioxidants halting LDL oxidation
Natto & vitamin K2: pulling calcium out of arteries and back into bone
Leafy greens & beets: nitrate reservoirs for nitric oxide
Each food targets a different mechanism.
Together, they form a multi-targeted cocktail without side effects.
Drugs vs Foods
We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it useful.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching 11
Drugs
Statins: LDL ↓50%, plaque regression ~1% after 2 yrs (ASTEROID).
PCSK9 inhibitors + statins: LDL ↓60%, plaque regression ~1% in 18 mo (GLAGOV).
Foods
Lifestyle (Ornish): LDL ↓37%, angiographic regression in 1 yr, sustained for 5 yrs.
Esselstyn: LDL <80 mg/dL (↓60-70%), total cholesterol <150 mg/dL, disease arrested or reversed, 95% no recurrent events.
Triple Therapy Reversal (Food, Exercise, Fasting)
My results: LDL ↓ 64% in 12 weeks (168 → 61); CIMT reversal 1.8mm to 0.86mm (full reversal in carotids in 3 months)
Drugs change numbers. Food, exercise, and fasting heal the system.
The Stomach Constraint
Every system has a bottleneck. In business, it’s production capacity. In the body, it’s the size of the stomach and the amount of blood to supply nutrients and remove metabolic waste.
You can only eat so much. Every bite displaces another.
Why fill the stomach with endothelial toxins — refined oils, sugary desserts — when the same constraint could be used for healing foods?
The stomach becomes the site of choice. The constraint forces a decision: the Tree of Life or the toxic fruit.
Do We Eat for Taste or for Health?
We’ve been conditioned to desire to eat food that is marketed as delicious, for taste. To try food as an experience by visiting top reviewed restaurants, with Michelin stars or rave reviews by food critics. To enjoy the convenience of simple, fast, cheap crunchy, sugary delight in fast foods.
It is perhaps only our parents who emphasize that we should eat for health, but for the most part this sage advice is ignored but their words may echo in our hearts when we receive the diagnosis of a disease.
What do you eat for?
For taste and pleasure or perhaps status and experience?
Or for life and health?
If both could be true, even better.
I am working with artisans and food companies to create wholesome, healthy, tasty, pleasure-filled experiences. Check out 123dough.com and 123dough.ca (but we have yet a long way to go to reach our ideal vision).
Reflection
The whole is a symphony of parts that all work together in a rhythm that is marvelous and profound.
Dr. Kevin Ham
How can such simple foods with no ingredient labels cure our number one disease killers, if we replace the foods that industry promotes by enticing marketing, accessibility, speed and cost but very low quality?
Life-Changing Question
What nitrate rich foods can you add daily to each meal and replace with foods that causes inflammation?
Literally can be life-saving in a matter of years.
Next week—
Reversing Diabetes in 3 months
Diabetes is even easier to reverse than heart disease.
Appendix
Foods that have high nitrates.
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