In a review paper recently published in the journal Cell, researchers Jon Lundberg and Eddie Weitzberg in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet summarize the study in nitric oxide (NO) focus on what’s happening right now.
When NO was discovered as a neurotransmitter nearly 40 years ago, it surprised the entire research community. Few people would have thought that a gas, known as a harmful air pollutant, is formed in our bodies and performs a number of important functions. Among other things, blood flow regulation and blood pressure control, was also awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998.
Although the field is vast, with more than one hundred thousand publications on the subject, surprisingly few new clinical approaches or new treatments have emerged from this, according to the authors. But there are two methods that stand out from the Swede’s point of view, for which they write:
“In this context, it is interesting that two out of five of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have approved NO-related methods, based on early findings from Karolinska Institutet. Jon Lundberg, professor of Nitric Oxide Pharmacology, says it is a method of delivering inhaled NO to infants with severe lung disease and a method of measuring exhaled NO as a marker of inflammation in asthma.
Other, newer methods, come from pharmaceutical companies and include so-called guanylyl cyclase promoters, i.e. drugs that act under the action of NO to increase the formation of cGMP, cyclic guanosine monophosphate, a cyclic nucleotide that acts as a messenger molecule inside the cell. Today, these drugs are used for heart failure and so-called pulmonary hypertension. Additional drugs associated with NO are the vasodilator nitroglycerin, which is used in angina and works through NO release. The article also mentions that sildenafil, a treatment used for impotence, works by inhibiting the breakdown of cGMP.
Proven effect on physical performance
The paper’s authors also shed light on the alternative NO formation pathway they discovered in the 1990s, namely through the so-called inorganic nitrate. It is found in large quantities in some vegetables and is converted to NO in our bodies through a system that also involves bacteria in the oral cavity. The usual pathway for NO formation in the body is through so-called NO synthesis, which uses L-arginine and oxygen to form NO. NO from nitrate is independent of synthetic NO and does not require oxygen, but it is still the same NO and has the same effect on the body. In this way, nitrate absorption can, among other things, lower blood pressure. Nitrate has another effect that Lundberg and Weitzberg discovered by accident; it reduces oxygen consumption during physical work, so the same work can be done with less oxygen consumption. The effect is used today by athletes around the world to increase performance:
Jon Lundberg concludes: “We are actually a bit proud that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently published a consensus report stating that nitrate is one of the four dietary supplements that have Proven use for physical activity.
Source: Karolinska Institutet
