Choosing the Best Nitric Oxide Supplement

Many supplements offer us with an excellent way to improve upon any nutritional deficiencies that are present within the body. This provides an excellent way to ensure optimal health and function, while covering all our bases from a performance perspective.

Some supplements provide us with unique compounds that are known to interact with the body at a cellular level, stimulating improved development and function.

And some supplements can increase the amount specific compounds found naturally within the body in small amounts, boosting their effectiveness, thus causing huge improvement in health and performance.

Nitric Oxide is one such supplement.

What is Nitric Oxide?

Nitric Oxide (also known as NO in the supplement world) is a natural gas produced within the human body by specific enzymes found in the endothelial cells lining our arteries, where it acts as an important signaling molecule for the cardiovascular system.

More specifically, once produced within the endothelial cells, nitric oxide penetrates the underlying smooth muscle tissue where it causes it to relax. This relaxation of the arteries causes them to dilate (a process known as ‘vasodilation’), subsequently increasing blood flow throughout the body while also reducing blood pressure.

Through this promotion of blood flow through the vascular system, Nitric Oxide is also suggested to reduce systemic inflammation and oxidative stress – both of which are known to negatively influence health in a big way.

What Are the Benefits of Taking a Nitric Oxide Supplement?

Through its interaction with the cardiovascular system, the supplementation of nitric oxide has been shown to have a host of positive effects on the body. These are both health and performance related, and can cause huge improvement in our ability to function on a daily basis.

Nitric Oxide Supplementation and Heart Disease

When cholesterol builds up on the walls of our arteries, our ability to produce nitric oxide becomes severely inhibited. This leads to severely narrowed arteries, a large increase in blood pressure, and a significant decline in cardiovascular health.

But as nitric oxide acts as an extremely potent vasodilator, its supplementation can cause these narrowed arteries to dilate. This improves the ability of the blood to flow freely throughout the body, reducing blood pressure and cardiovascular stress.

This can go a very long way to reducing the risk of developing heart disease, while acting as a potent addition to traditional cardiovascular medications ^[1].

Nitric Oxide Supplementation and Athletic Performance

By increasing blood flow throughout the body, nitric oxide can improve the amount of oxygen and nutrients delivered to the body’s working tissue both during and after exercise.

This essentially means that we can perform more work during sport performance and training sessions (as our energy production is increased significantly), with our recovery also being enhanced after our training session (as we have essential nutrients readily available for use).

Through these mechanisms we can see acute improvements in endurance performance, making nitric oxide a great option for those who enjoy endurance based exercise. This also comes with improved training response to endurance activity ^[2].

Similarly, nitric oxide supplementation before resistance training has been hypothesized to improvement in muscle growth and strength development, as we get more work completed each individual training session ^[3].

Nitric Oxide Supplementation and Cognition

In conjunction with the above effects, nitric oxide has also been shown to act as a neurotransmitter within the brain, assisting in the transition of neural impulses between cells – with specific emphasis on those areas that are responsible for memory and learning.

With this in mind, the supplementation of nitric oxide has been suggested to improve our ability perform cognitively driven tasks that require memory. This may actually allow improve memory recollection, while also boosting learning efficiency ^[4].

Best Nitric Oxide Supplement Reviews

Nitric oxide is one of the most potent and safe supplements available on the market. With this in mind, its popularity has resulted in a number of subpar options entering the market.

As a result we have gone and found what we believe to be the best three nitric oxide supplements available on the market at the moment.

Sheer Strengths SHEER N.O Nitric Oxide Supplement

This nitric oxide supplement by Sheer Nutrition is unquestionably the most popular on the market – and for very good reason too.

Using high quality compounds provided in scientifically supported doses, this is a great option. It has been extremely well received within the health and fitness community, where it has been applauded for its effectiveness and ease of consumption.

ZHOU N.O Pro Nitric Oxide Booster

ZHOU are a great supplement company that consistently produce high quality products at pretty reasonable price points.

This nitric oxide supplement is a fine example of this, using top quality ingredients provided in potent dosages, you really can’t go wrong. This has gained a lot of support from more athletic individuals, who constantly applaud its performance boosting effects.

N.O XT Nitric Oxide Supplement

Advertised as an elite nitric oxide booster, this particular supplement uses a number of specific compounds that have been shown to cause large increases in nitric oxide production, as well as providing a potent dose of NO straight to the body.

While this is advertised for those more athletic individuals, it is a great option for absolutely anyone looking to improve health and performance.

Take-Away Message

Nitric oxide is an amazing compound that plays a number of key roles within the body. Interestingly, by increasing the amount of nitric oxide within the body through smart supplementation, we see a number of unique benefits.

These include a huge improvement in cardiovascular function (combined with a reduced risk of heart disease), improved exercise performance and recovery, increased muscle growth and strength development, and a greater capacity for memory and learning.

Nitric oxide is seriously one of the most well-rounded and beneficial supplements available.

With that in mind, the three nitric oxide supplements outlined within this article are what we believe to be the best available on the market at this point in time – each of which offer us with an excellent option.

As always, if you have had experience with ANY of them, we would love to hear about it – so please drop us a comment and we will get back to you ASAP.