There is no standard blood test for testing nitric oxide deficiency. However, it has become a little easier to assess NO deficiency. There are oral test strips, first developed by Dr. Bryan, such as the one pictured here from Designs for Health, that measure if a patient has adequate levels. If saliva turns the strip a bright pink, then there is sufficient NO being produced. It can have some inaccuracies. One would be if someone has eaten within an hour. The other is if someone has an infection in their mouth. In both cases, you would find it falsely elevated. The immune system's reaction to the infection will cause NO to elevate in the mouth. I have been testing patients, and I have found that many are showing a deficiency of NO. The reasons for this are generally because the process of converting nitrates to nitric oxide is disturbed by one or more factors. One reason is the use of fluoridated mouthwash and toothpaste and the effect it has on the nitrate to nitrite pathway. Fluoride is antimicrobial, and the conversion process is dependent on bacteria in the mouth to accomplish this. More than two hundred million Americans use mouthwash daily. The application of fluoridated mouthwash could offset the positive effects of nitric oxide obtained from dietary intake and exercise. Finding an alternative to fluoridated toothpaste and mouthwash is especially important if you have any symptoms of nitric oxide deficiency.
I have been listening to Dr. Nathan Bryan for over a year on different podcasts and finally got around to reading this book by him. Although nitric oxide was discovered in the 1700s, its role as a signaling molecule for the cardiovascular system was discovered in 1980. In 1998, Lou Ignarro, Robert Furchgott, and Ferid Murad received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their research on it. This led Dr. Bryan to apply their discovery to practical knowledge for physicians and patients about the importance of nitric oxide (NO) to improve health outcomes. With over ninety-five research articles to his credit, Dr. Bryan’s book explains his 20-year investigation into understanding why this molecule is so important to our health.
From this chart you can see that nitric oxide (NO), which is a gas, is important for nearly every facet of human physiology. It is important for the cardiovascular system, in helping to lower blood pressure, and reducing the risk of clotting. The nervous system needs NO to maintain cognitive function.
As mentioned in the previous newsletter, this month we will go deeper into the book by Dr. Richard Frye, The Folate Fix. Now that you are familiar with CFD, cerebral folate deficiency, we will now discuss how to diagnose it and how to treat it. Additionally, I will explain Tylenol's link to this diagnosis. If you want to refresh the information from Part 1, click here.
This newsletter is about a book written by Dr. Richard Frye, a medical doctor who also has a PhD in Physiology and Biophysics along with a master’s degree in biomedical science and biostatistics. He has authored more than three hundred peer reviewed articles, and along with board certifications in pediatrics and neurology he is a national leader in autism research. I will attempt to summarize his work over two newsletters.
Since the 1990s, creatine supplementation has been hailed as a shortcut to improving or recovering from physical demands on our body. Most studies concentrated on improvements with athletic performance or recovery. Creatine is formed in our bodies from three amino acids, methionine, arginine, and glycine, all of which can be found in any animal protein source that we consume. Creatine is made from these three amino acids in the liver, but also to a lesser extent the kidneys and pancreas also make creatine and store it in the form of phosphocreatine. It is the phosphocreatine compound donating the P to convert ADP to ATP, the primary energy carrier within the mitochondria that is showing many more health benefits than previously imagined with creatine supplementation.
The suit against the government began in 2016 and when I wrote the newsletter in 2021 the judge in the case, Judge Edward Chen, was expected to announce a decision within months. The attorney for the case Michael Connett had presented overwhelming evidence from studies showing that ingesting fluoride had many more side effects than was known when the practice of water fluoridation started in the 1950’s. Additionally under cross examination, government health officials admitted to a dearth of safety testing. The trial presented evidence of lowered IQ levels in children, increased risk of ADHD, autism, and other cognitive problems. In adults it could cause severe arthritis, osteoporosis and bone loss leading to increased risk of fractures, thyroid disease, kidney disease, gastrointestinal problems and cancers. All of this was presented in consideration for instituting a change in policy.
About ninety million people in the U.S. are on a statin drug for lowering cholesterol. The mechanism of how a statin drug works and its side effects are usually dismissed because of the dangerous perception high cholesterol represents. The mevalonate pathway is a sequence of cellular reactions leading to the synthesis of cholesterol, dolichol, ubiquinol (Coenzyme Q10), sex hormones, and protein synthesis. Anyone who is on a statin should understand how a statin can influence all these other processes.
About three and a half years ago I wrote a newsletter about the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) and discussed the growing influence of this organization, which is part of the United Nations, has on health policies around the world. Specifically, it seems to have changed much of its focus from improving health in third world countries by improving living conditions with clean water, access to medical care etc. to pandemic preparedness and the implementation of a vaccine response in that event. What raised concern for me, and others, was that seventy-five percent of the donations to the W.H.O. come from private donors, pharmaceutical companies, and foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, not member governments. Oftentimes those donors earmark their donations for specific purposes, which begs the question about what motives those private donors might want in the way of policy changes about how the W.H.O. operates. In short, according to Dr. Meryl Nass “the W.H.O. dances to the tune of its donors, not its members.”
