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There are a lot of factors involved in a man’s sexual health. Things like nutrition and diet, sleep, exercise, drug use, and overall health can all play into a man’s ability to achieve a strong, healthy erection.
On the flip side, the opposite is also true. Things like an unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, and subpar health can all make a man prone to erectile dysfunction.
For any man with erectile dysfunction, the first thing to do is to make sure that you’re sexually healthy – and not just in regard to avoiding sexually transmitted diseases. A number of nutrients, like nitric oxide, can all contribute to your sexual health.
In this article, we’ll explain what nitric oxide is, and how it can help with your sexual performance and your overall health. We’ll also explain whether or not nitric oxide foods are enough to boost your NO levels or if you’ll need to take a nitric oxide supplement.
What Will You Learn?
- Health Benefits of Nitric Oxide
- Can Higher Nitric Oxide Levels Improve Erectile Dysfunction?
- How to Increase Nitric Oxide Naturally
- The Best Foods Rich In Nitric Oxide
- Foods That decrease Nitric Oxide Levels
- Supplements to Increase Nitric Oxide Levels
Health Benefits of Nitric Oxide
Nitric oxide is a very important nutrient. Almost every cell in the human body produces and uses nitric oxide, and it’s incredibly important for maintaining the health of our blood vessels.
As most men know, having healthy blood vessels is important. It’s the blood vessels in our penis that fill up when we get an erection, allowing us to perform for our partners. Without healthy blood vessels, it’s hard to get a strong erection.
It’s not just erectile health that nitric oxide can improve. The nutrient, which can be found in foods and supplements, has a number of health benefits. These include:
Improving Sexual Health
Nitric oxide is an important nutrient for helping to regulate the flow of blood throughout the body. This means that it can be useful for men who are struggling with erectile dysfunction. Nitric oxide encourages blood to flow throughout the body – including to the penis.
Helping Reduce Muscle Soreness & Recovery Time
Every man knows the feeling of muscle soreness that often accompanies a good workout. While this soreness is generally a good sign – it means that the muscle fibers have been torn, and that they’ll grow back stronger – that doesn’t make it any more comfortable.
There is some evidence that nitric oxide helps to reduce this particular form of muscle pain, which is known as delayed-onset muscle soreness. This is because nitric oxide encourages blood to flow to the overworked muscles.
This, in turn, allows the muscles to make use of more oxygen, which allows them to repair and heal quicker.
Helps Improve Blood Pressure
Nitric oxide is a nutrient that’s involved in managing cardiovascular health. One of the things that it does is help the blood vessels in the body relax. Relaxed blood vessels are a better channel for blood to flow through easier.
People who have difficulty with tight blood vessels experience high blood pressure. They also tend to be more likely to have problems using the NO that their body produces. Eating nitric oxide foods, such as beets, can help to reduce high blood pressure.
Enhances Performance
Another one of the benefits that you might experience as a result of relaxed blood vessels is improved performance – sexually and otherwise.
When your blood vessels are relaxed, they are better able to bring oxygen to the muscles and organs in your body. When you are exercising, these body parts require a great deal more oxygen. Nitric oxide ensures that they can actually receive this oxygen.
For these reasons, nitric oxide has become a pretty popular supplement for athletes, bodybuilders, and anyone interested in optimizing their physical performance.
Helps Fight Diabetes
Another thing that nitric oxide may be useful for is helping people who struggle with diabetes. Research has revealed that people with type 2 diabetes have a hard time using the NO that their body produces.
Taking supplements that raise NO production can help diabetics improve their symptoms.
Can Higher Nitric Oxide Levels Improve Erectile Dysfunction?
As mentioned above, NO can help men fight the symptoms of erectile dysfunction. But how exactly does this work?
To understand this, first, you need to understand how an erection works. When a man becomes aroused, the brain sends signals to the penis that increase the flow of blood to the tissues in the region. As blood flows into these tissues, the penis becomes erect.
Men with erectile dysfunction, for one reason or another, have a problem filling these blood vessels up successfully.
There are several reasons that NO can help to increase the chances of a man getting an erection.
- NO improves blood flow throughout the body by dilating the blood vessels. This means that it makes it easier for blood and oxygen to flow anywhere in your body – including your penis.
- NO helps the muscles in your penis relax, encouraging blood flow to the region. This can also help men who struggle with a psychological form of erectile dysfunction by making it easier for them to get in the mood.
Researchers have recognized that nitric oxide boosting supplements may not be as effective as medications like Viagra. However, nitric oxide supplements are generally much safer, they can be tolerated well, and they do not cause side effects when used for short-term periods.
It’s generally a good idea to try using a safe supplement that boosts NO before moving to something more serious (and risky) like Viagra. If you are struggling with nitric oxide erectile dysfunction, these will be able to help.
How to Increase Nitric Oxide Naturally
There are a number of ways that you can increase nitric oxide levels naturally. These include:
- Eating foods that are rich in nitrates. We’ll provide a more detailed list of foods that you can eat to increase nitric oxide levels below.
- Consume more antioxidants. This can be done by taking antioxidant supplements, but also by simply eating a healthier diet. Again, read the list of foods high in nitric oxide below.
- Take supplements that can boost NO levels.
- Exercise more. Frequent exercise helps encourage your body to produce higher levels of nitric oxide.
The Best Foods Rich In Nitric Oxide
Most foods don’t actually contain a great deal of nitric oxide, but they contain nitrates that your body can turn into nitric oxide. These are the best foods with nitric oxide or, more likely, high levels of nitrates.
Beets
Beets are generally known as one of the go-to foods that increase nitric oxide. Beets are very rich in nitrates, which your body quickly turns into NO.
In fact, drinking beet juice can help elevate your body’s level of NO by as much as 21% in under an hour. This is more impressive than some supplements!
Beets are also one of the most likely foods to help a man overcome erectile dysfunction.
Garlic
Garlic is another very useful food for anyone hoping to boost NO levels. It does this by activating a compound known as nitric oxide synthase. This enzyme is necessary because it helps the body convert L-arginine into nitric oxide.
L-arginine is a common amino acid that’s found in a number of foods, as well as a number of supplements designed to help improve sexual function. Garlic can help improve your sexual ability by helping your body turn that L-arginine into useful nitric oxide.
Chocolate
Chocolate can help increase nitric oxide. However, you have to get the good stuff – dark chocolate, at least 70%. If you really want the benefits of chocolate, try to find pure, unrefined, raw cacao. If you can handle the bitterness, you’ll be in for a world of improvement.
Many of the flavonols and ingredients in raw chocolate can help your body increase its nitric oxide production.
Green, Leafy Vegetables
Yet another reason to eat your greens: it turns out, leafy greens might be able to help you fight erectile dysfunction by improving nitric oxide production. Good examples of greens include spinach, arugula, and kale. All of these are loaded with nitrates.
Citrus Fruits
Fruits like oranges, lemons, and pineapples are all rich in vitamin C. Vitamin C is an important nutrient for men because it helps the body make better use of the nitric oxide that it produces. By making better use of your NO, you can improve blood flow and enhance erectile health.
Pomegranate
Pomegranate is another fruit that has long been associated with men’s sexual health. There are a number of reasons for this.
First off, pomegranate is a great source of antioxidants. These can help improve the rate at which your body retains nitric oxide. These antioxidants can also help to improve the efficacy of the NO that your body already has.
Pomegranate is most effective in the form of pomegranate juice. Pomegranates are tricky to eat, and it’d take a long time to consume enough fresh pomegranate to notice much of a difference in your NO levels.
Watermelon
As we mentioned earlier, the body converts L-arginine into nitric oxide.
Watermelon is rich in a different amino acid, known as L-citrulline. The body converts L-citrulline into L-arginine, which is then turned into NO by your body. This makes watermelon a viable fruit for helping to boost NO levels.
Foods That Decrease Nitric Oxide Levels
There aren’t really a lot of foods that decrease nitric oxide levels. People who have a low level of nitric oxide generally just aren’t eating enough healthy foods. It’s not that certain foods lower nitric oxide, but if you’re not eating fruits and vegetables rich in nitrates, then your body will have a hard time producing NO.
It’s that simple. If you’re not producing enough NO, then your diet probably needs some improvement.
Another thing to remember is that there is a significant difference between the nitrates found in plant food and animal nitrates. Animal nitrates, which are found in processed meat products, are generally converted by your body into nitrosamines.
You don’t want nitrosamines in your body. They can contribute to a host of unpleasant health problems, including an increased risk of cancer.
Supplements to Increase Nitric Oxide Levels
Eating a diet rich in the proper fruits and vegetables can help ensure that you have healthy levels of nitric oxide. However, sometimes you might want a bit of an extra punch. In this case, there’s usually no harm in taking nitric oxide supplements.
There are lots of different supplements that you can take to do this. You can take L-arginine or L-citrulline supplements. Both of these allow your body to make use of a great deal of these amino acids, which it then converts into nitric oxide on its own.
Your best bet, however, is to use a supplement like Viasil that contains a mixture of different ingredients that all work together to improve NO levels and erectile health.
Viasil contains a number of ingredients that we have discussed today.
- Citrus Sinensis, a citrus extract that helps to promote nitric oxide production in a more powerful way than simply eating citrus fruits.
- Pomegranate extract, a form of pomegranate that allows you to achieve all of the antioxidant and NO-boosting effects of the fruit without having to deal with picking the seeds apart.
Viasil also contains a few other ingredients that have been used to help enhance male sexual health. Herbs like Ginkgo Biloba, Panax ginseng, and horny goat weed have all been used by naturopaths, traditional medicine practitioners, and everyday Joes to enhance their erectile strength for years.
Conclusion
Nitric oxide is an incredibly important nutrient for improving erectile strength. Eat a diet rich in nitric oxide foods and take NO-boosting supplements if you really want to maximize your sexual ability.
