Improving Brain Function – Part One

As people age one of their concerns is improving brain function. Every study that I’ve ever seen that improves blood flow to the brain improves brain function.

It is one of the reason why I’m a big proponent of Nitric Oxide Therapy.

Helping your body improve its ability to create nitric oxide ends up improving blood flow. Improved blood flow improves the deliver of oxygen and nutrients to the brain. As well as helps to properly remove metabolic waste.

This allows your brain cells to function better.

What is critical to blood flow is the health of your endothelium and its ability to properly produce nitric oxide.

The importance of your endothelium was recently highlight in a 2019 video that I saw from the BrainMind Summit. In this video Dr. George Church of Harvard Medical School made the following statement:

“Here some stem cells are turning into two different kinds of important brain cells. The one that everyone thinks about which is neurons . . . but the one that people tend to forget about is the endothelium, which provides the blood to the neurons. And there is almost exactly 1 capillary per neuron. So you have 86 billion neurons in your brain you have almost 86 billion capillaries. . .”

Capillaries are needed to bring the oxygen and nutrients to the neurons. Capillaries are endothelial tissue.

Thus the health of your endothelial tissue helps determine the health of your capillaries.

And contained in your endothelium are enzymes that convert the amino acid L-arginine to nitric oxide.

Nitric oxide then dilates the blood vessels for improved blood flow.

As I’ve already stated, improved blood flow delivers more oxygen and nutrients, which then nourishes your neurons to improve their performance.

One of the ways for improving brain function is to improve the health of your endothelium and its ability to properly produce nitric oxide. To this end there are five key ingredients. They are:

• L-arginine

• L-citrulline

• Vitamin D3

• Vitamin K2

• Pomegranate Fruit Extract

L-arginine is always the first and most important ingredient. The 1998 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to 3 American researchers for discovering how your endothelium converts the amino acid L-arginine, into nitric oxide, the master signaling molecule of your entire cardiovascular system.

And while L-arginine can be found in the food you eat, the easiest method to make sure you’re consuming enough of this amino acid is to use a daily nutritional supplement that contains pure, free form l-arginine that’s also pharmaceutical grade.

For most people the use of L-arginine is not enough. The conversion of L-arginine to nitric oxide only provides a two hour window of improved nitric oxide production. Then within 4 to 6 hours most people are back to their baseline levels.

This results in a temporary increase in blood flow but not long lasting benefit.

If you want to optimize your production of nitric oxide, then you must combine the l-arginine with L-citrulline.

As you can see in this image, l-citrulline is key to keeping this nitric oxide production going.

The next key ingredients are Vitamin D3 and Vitamin K2. They work together to regulate calcium levels in your bloodstream. Calcium is a key ingredient because the enzymatic production of nitric oxide, by your endothelium, is a calcium dependent reaction.

Now let’s look at vitamin K.

You need to know that the form of vitamin K is critical. Many companies use vitamin K1, because it’s significantly cheaper to use. The problem is vitamin K1 does not support vascular health and may actual interfere with blood thinning medications.

Vitamin K2 is just the opposite. This correct form significantly improves arterial and cardiovascular health. It also plays an important role in preventing calcification of the arteries as well as soft tissues like your heart, lungs, and kidneys.

The final key ingredient is pomegranate fruit extract. This ingredients enhances the function of the enzymes of the endotheliium to produce higher levels of nitric oxide. It also acts as a powerful antioxidant to prevent vascular inflammation, which helps to limit plaque formation.

There are other nutrients that can improve brain function. They are called nootropics, which have been shown to improve brain processing speed, learning, and memory.

We’ll look at these nutrients in part two of Improving Brain Function.

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer