Does Your Son or Husband Take Nitric Oxide Pills or Testosterone?

(They’re all doing it!)

Today I want to be your CliffsNotes on the current trend to take drugs or supplements to get MORE nitric oxide (NO).

If you’d want to watch this, rather than read, you’ve got a video version here.

Men are the target of a great deal of marketing to increase their testosterone, which isn’t appropriate if you already have enough testosterone, as most do.

But you may be less aware that “nitric oxide pump” drugs and supplements are all the rage, as well. And the line between drug and supplement has gotten very blurry.

Men have been told for many years to take Viagra for a 6-hour erection. They’re also told to take non-prescription supplements for the “nitric oxide pump” for extra energy at the gym.

But especially guys who do BOTH of those things, since nitric oxide is being pitched for sexual performance and for performance in sports or working out–

–if they’re using both especially, one of the sexual performance drugs AND one of the workout performance supplements–

–many men may not realize they’re getting a double dose, putting them at risk for many problems.

They may not realize what a strain they’re putting on their body, that thousands of men have had heart attacks and even died from increasing nitric oxide.

Men with problems maintaining erections are actually seeing the “canary in the coal mine” of early stages of heart disease. The sex organs are very much connected to the cardiovascular system, of course, and it’s blood flow and proper hormone levels that cause an erection.

I don’t think men know this, and I also don’t think young men are really the demographic who watches my videos, but their mothers and wives are …

… and I think you ladies, and you parents, would be surprised to know how many nitric oxide-increasing supplements young men are taking.

We actually need to build up a tolerance for nitric oxide, which is a waste product of the body that we need co-exist with, and balance, rather than doing that uniquely American thing of thinking that if you get a short-term effect from something, then more of it is always better.

I even saw an interview with a PhD who talked about how because nitric oxide has been discovered to be useful for athletic performance, everyone should eat more sausage and bacon and pepperoni because they’re cured with nitrates.

The evidence on how many ways processed meat cured with nitrites and nitrates are bad for you and in fact cause cancer, is decades’ worth of published evidence.

It’s an avalanche of evidence, and that’s well beyond the scope of this video.

But it’s also undeniable. There was even a study dating back to the 1980’s looking at children with cancer and the only thing they could find that these kids had in common was that they ate an average of 11 hot dogs per month.

So many studies show the harm of eating processed meat cured with nitrates.

But the PhD who loves nitrates, turns out he works in product development, and actually pitched nitric oxide products that “cure” meat actually having another meaning–as in, a “cure” for disease.

While eating processed meat cured with nitrites and nitrates may keep those foods in the supply chain for a long time, it is a cure for exactly zero diseases, even if it gives you a pre-workout “pump.”

So it’s clear that nitric oxide is an industrial pollutant, and that our body creates it during normal metabolic processes and needs to regulate and get rid of it.

That doesn’t mean that it can’t have some short-term effects that someone, especially a man, might like, as he’s thinking about now and not thinking about the future.

But, cancer, heart disease, and some actually really gruesome other physical symptoms that can impair quality of life, your whole life, including serious sexual dysfunction–can also be the result of artificially increasing nitric oxide in the body.

Medical researcher Mark Sloan covered this topic very well in the first couple of chapters of his book on methylene blue recently, if you want to dig deeper. He goes into detail on the evidence that increasing NO is a very bad idea.

So, while production of nitric oxide is a natural occurrence in the human body, trying to trap it, keep it, or maximize it, looks to be a really bad idea.

I hope this is useful to you or someone you love who is taking nitric oxide supplements or drugs.

You won’t know if they’re doing so; the men in our lives don’t generally talk about it. When I learned about this I was surprised to learn that ALL the young men in my life had used NO or were still using it!

All of them have been targeted by marketing to convince them to increase testosterone and/or nitric oxide.

I’ve had multiple women write me with their stories about how testosterone supplementation destroyed their relationships with their husbands, or nearly did until they realized the man really did not “need” testosterone.

Two separate but similar issues, where a lot of marketing is targeting men. I’ve had my own husband consider “taking T,” which is not wise and I had to convince him of that. As the person closest to him, I can confidently say he does NOT have a low-T problem!

I hope this helps you or someone you love, do a bit more research before taking these drugs / supplements. The line between “drug” and “supplement” has become very blurred, and it’s the same companies making both categories of products.

If you find my work valuable, consider being a $10/mo subscriber, and we thank you so much for your support!