Issues with cognitive function are growing in the general population. As I did research on the last post regarding a new Alzheimer’s treatment program I came across the following title and article. Since I’m a big believer in the power of nitric oxide therapy to improve cardiovascular health I just had to read it.

The title says it all.

Cognitive function is aided by proper nitric oxide production.

If you would like to read it, then the link to the article is below the title. However, I’ve produced a new video to help you better understand this area.

Involvement of nitric oxide in learning & memory processes

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3121276/

You have two choices in understanding how nitric oxide therapy addresses cognitive function. The video version which you can watch. Or an edited text version of the same information. I’ll let you decide which you prefer.

Video on How Nitric Oxide Therapy Addresses Cognitive Function

Edited Text on How Nitric Oxide Therapy Addresses Cognitive Function

Emerging science has shown a significant link between cognitive function, cardiovascular disease, and how nitric oxide therapy can help prevent both of them.

While cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer of men and women worldwide, Alzheimer’s disease has become the number one fear for many people.

Why?

For two specific reasons.

First, we’ve had to care for loved ones who have slowly lost their mental clarity. And, in caring for them, we have directly experienced the emotional, financial, social, and physical costs this disease has had in fragmenting loving relationships.

Second, we don’t want to personally experience the loss of cognitive function and become a burden to our family.

This can become pretty depressing until you understand the following:

The Answer to Improved Cognitive Function Lies in Prevention!

That’s right. You have the power to make a significant difference in how the loss of cognitive function affects you, as well as the people around you. There is enough research and clinical data to positively demonstrate that if you properly care for your cardiovascular system you will substantially reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s and many other cognitive issues.

According to the National Institute on Aging, about 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease. It’s the most common cause of dementia among older adults. Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning, which includes thinking, remembering, and reasoning, to the extent that it interferes with your daily life and activities. They go on to state:

“Although we still don’t know what starts the Alzheimer’s disease process, we do know that damage to the brain begins as many as 10 to 20 years before any problems are evident.”

It’s for this very reason why prevention is so critical to your future cognitive health.

And the health of your cardiovascular system is one of the keys to prevention. According to Dr. David S. Geldmacher, from the October 2010 issue of the Cleveland Clinic, Journal of Medicine,

“Rates of dementia of all causes are higher in people with diabetes.”

He also goes on to say,

“Diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity might lead to dementia in a process abetted by oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, insulin resistance, inflammation, adiposity, and subcortical vascular disease. All of these could be targets of intervention to prevent and treat dementia.”

So let’s decode this statement as it applies to Nitric Oxide Therapy.

I’ve highlighted oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, and subcortical vascular disease.

All three of these directly effect the most important tissue of your entire cardiovascular system. That tissue is your endothelium.

Continuing with Dr. Geldmacher’s statement I’ve highlighted the following:

Diabetes and high blood sugar levels cause oxidative stress to your endothelium.

Hypertension or high blood pressure damages the endothelium.

Dyslipidemia or the oxidation of LDL cholesterol causes damage to your endothelium.

Each of these three highlighted cardiovascular health issues cause inflammation to the endothelium.

This inflammation results in plaque formations that grow over time. And this cumulative damage drastically reduces your nitric oxide production.

As your endothelium is damaged and your nitric oxide production decreases so does your blood flow and its ability to bring needed oxygen and nutrients to your cells, tissues, and organ systems.

In your skull is a 3 pound wonder that has 100 billion neurons sending each other electrical and chemical signals in an orchestrated pattern that creates memories and allows for learning.

At about the age of 30, our brains begin to shrink by about a half a percent per year. We usually don’t notice this change for years but over time this shrinkage, combined with other factors, begins to weaken the signals inside our brain. This leads to memory loss which is normal for most people as they age.

What is not normal is for this orchestrated electrical and chemical signaling pattern to become so dysfunctional that it leads to dementia diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Each nerve cell communicates with many other neurons to form networks. These networks of neurons have special jobs. Some help us to see, hear, smell, move, and breathe. Other networks are involved in thinking, learning, and remembering.

Every network of neurons is like a tiny factory that needs resources, generates energy, performs a function, and eliminates waste. To keep everything running requires large amounts of nutrients and oxygen. Of these four basic components: resources, energy, function, and waste your cardiovascular system and proper blood flow is critical to 3 of the 4 components.

It’s your cardiovascular system that will delivery the needed resources for brain function. Those resources, like oxygen and glucose, are going to provide the energy your brain needs to function. And the waste products created by your brain’s energy production must be carried away by the circulatory system.

This is how nitric oxide therapy can help with cognitive function.

By repairing and nourishing your endothelial cells to enhance their ability to properly produce nitric oxide you can have a significant impact on increasing blood flow.

This increased circulation delivers more oxygen and nutrients while properly removing metabolic waste products.

Here’s an example of what improved blood flow can do for cognitive function.

Researchers at the University of Illinois in Urbana put two groups of older adults on two different types of exercise programs. Group one did one hour of aerobic training three times a week. Group two did non-aerobic stretching and toning exercises. MRIs were taken 3 months later. The aerobic group showed an increase in brain volume and white matter in the frontal lobes where attention and memory are processed.

According to Dr. Arthur Kramer, “The aerobic exercisers had the brain volumes of people 2 to 3 years younger.”

One of the byproducts of increased exercise is stimulating the endothelium to produce higher levels of nitric oxide to improve blood flow.

This results in delivering more oxygen and nutrients and providing a better environment for tissue and organ function. In this case cognitive function.

While the following study is small it’s still significant in what it shows regarding nitric oxide therapy and helping to properly nourish your endothelium to optimize its production of nitric oxide.

Here’s the edited abstract for this study from Japan:

16 elderly people with cardiovascular disease (mean age, 79 years), who had been living in a nursing home for 2 to 4 years, were treated with relatively low doses of oral L-arginine (1.6 g/day) for 3 months. Their cognitive function was evaluated using the Hasegawa Dementia Scale (HDS-R) before treatment started, after 3 months of treatment, and finally 3 months after treatment stopped. The HDS-R is a widely used measure in Japan. A score of 30 on the HDS-R is considered normal, while a score of 20 or lower indicates dementia.

After 3 months of treatment with L-arginine, cognitive function improved significantly in all subjects from a mean of 16 to 23 (P <0.0001). Within 3 months of stopping L-arginine treatment, the HDS score returned to pretreatment levels (17) (P <0.0001) (Fig. 1). Lipid peroxide levels (an indicator of oxidative stress) also declined significantly during L-arginine treatment (P <0.001) compared with the Baseline and Post-treatment measurements. The authors hypothesized that L-arginine treatment improved cognitive function by increasing NO levels, by reducing oxidative stress, or both.

To highlight how important nitric oxide therapy is in improving blood flow and the impact it can have on cognitive function we have this from the Mayo Clinic.

“If you look at any risk factor for cardiovascular disease – the standard risk factors like high cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, aging – all of these have been associated with loss of nitric oxide in the endothelium (the linings of blood vessels), a condition known as endothelial dysfunction.”

-Zvonimir S. Katusic, M.D., Ph.D., senior author and professor at the Mayo Clinic, “Endothelial Nitric Oxide Modulates Expression and Processing of Amyloid Precursor Protein,” Circulation Research published online ahead of print Dec. 2, 2010.-

“Once you lose that [baseline of] nitric oxide, you see the increases in APP (amyloid precursor protein) and BACE1 (an enzyme that together with APP helps to create Alzheimer plaques), and the increase in amyloid beta generation.”

-Susan Austin, PhD., first author of the study, and a research fellow at the Mayo Clinic-

As we’ve shared with you, the proper application of nitric oxide therapy can have a profound benefit on helping people naturally improve cognitive function.

This does not mean that nitric oxide therapy will cure or reverse Alzheimer’s disease.

What it does mean is that when properly applied, nitric oxide therapy can improve blood flow and the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to help cells, tissues, and organ system function better.

This can then facilitate improved cognitive function.

It’s with this in mind that we implemented The Million Lives Project. Our goal is to help a million people or more understand how they could effectively use Nitric Oxide Therapy to significantly improve their overall health. How nitric oxide therapy can reduce your risk for cardiovascular health concerns like high blood pressure, diabetes, sexual and cognitive function issues, and poor wound healing.

One of the primary ways to do this is through our eBook, which is titled “Empower Your Heart With Breakthrough Nitric Oxide Therapy.” To obtain this eBook just send me an email at [email protected] requesting a copy.

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer