The Best Foods for Your Heart
By Dr. Mercola
Your diet is an important, if not crucial, factor for the maintenance of a healthy heart well into old age. Healthy dietary fats top the list of heart-healthy foods, of course, but aside from that, a nitrate-rich diet can go a long way toward protecting your heart.
Nitrates should not be confused with nitrites, found in bacon, hot dogs, ham and other less-than-healthy cured meats. Nitrites can convert into potentially dangerous nitrosamines, especially if heated, which is why processed meats are best avoided. In fact, after examining over 7,000 clinical studies, the World Cancer Research Fund concluded there’s no safe lower limit for processed meats.1They should be avoided altogether.
On the other hand, many vegetables contain naturally occurring nitrates. When consumed, the bacteria in your mouth convert these nitrates to nitrites, but since vegetables are also rich in antioxidants, these nitrites do not pose a health hazard. More importantly, your body transforms the nitrates in vegetables into nitric oxide (NO),2 a soluble gas continually produced from the amino acid L-arginine inside your cells.
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Aside from eating a nitrate-rich diet, one efficient way to increase NO production is a series of callisthenic exercises. I’m using a modified version of a routine originally developed by Dr. Zach Bush. You’ll find a quick demonstration of my “Nitric Oxide Dump” routine in the video above. This routine takes about three to four minutes and is ideally done three times a day, at least two hours apart.
Sources and References
- 1 World Cancer Research Fund, Limit Red Meat and Avoid Processed Meat
- 2 Essentialstuff.org April 28, 2014
- 3 Hypertension 2008 Mar;51(3):784-90
- 4 Nutr J. 2012 Dec 11;11:106
- 5 Seattle Times April 16, 2017
- 6 Bodyecology.com What Can Nitrates in Beet Juice Do For You?
- 7 Journals of Gerontology November 9, 2016, glw219
- 8 Mens Fitness April, 2017
- 9 Yahoo.com April 19, 2017
- 10 Neuroscience News April 19, 2017
- 11 New York Daily News April 20, 2017
- 12 Express.co.uk April 20, 2017
- 13 DrSinatra.com February 20, 2015
- 14 Morning Steel, Nitric Oxide Foods
- 15 Anabolic Men, Nitric Oxide Foods
- 16 Livestrong, Fruits and Vegetables High in Nitrates
- 17 The Drs Wolfson, 10 Foods to Boost Nitric Oxide
- 18 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition May 31, 2017; 106(1): 207-216
- 19 Science Daily September 12, 2016
- 20 Mens Fitness September 14, 2016
- 21 J Appl Physiol (1985). 2009 Oct;107(4):1144-55.
- 22 Circulation: Heart Failure 2015; 115.002141
- 23 Runners World May 8, 2013
- 24, 26 Pharmacology for Anesthetists 3
- 25 Dental Fear Central, Nitrous Oxide
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