Category Archives: Nitrates/nitrites

Our May Perfect Health Retreat begins on Saturday, and we’re thrilled to announce a new partner: AOBiome.

In January I blogged (“UBiome and the May 2015 Perfect Health Retreat”) about our partnership with uBiome.com. UBiome has contributed two gut microbiome sequencing kits for each guest, and we’re sequencing gut microbiomes pre-retreat and at the end of the retreat to see if a week together in a PHD-optimized environment causes microbiomes to converge to a “Perfect Health Diet” pattern.

Now, AOBiome is donating a four week supply of their AO+Mist skin probiotic to each guest. To see why I’m excited about this, I have to say a little about nitric oxide.

Nitric Oxide and Health

Nitric oxide is a gaseous signaling molecule with powerful effects on blood vessels, nerves, the immune system, gut and skin. It has proven to be such an important molecule that the three pharmacologists who established its role in relaxing blood vessels were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1998.

Nitroglycerin, the explosive which turned out to be an effective remedy for heart failure, works by increasing nitric oxide levels.

A list of health conditions that may be improved through better nitric oxide status would be too long to attempt, but here is a brief sampling of Pubmed links. Nitric oxide may be helpful for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, gut conditions like constipation and impaired gut barrier integrity, obesity and diabetes, immunity against infections, dementia, lung dysfunction / COPD, and kidney disease. Nitric oxide has been reported to improve reaction time and exercise performance. It’s been proposed that nitric oxide may slow aging.

How do we obtain nitric oxide? It is a gas so you can’t eat it. Rather, we eat green leafy vegetables and beets to obtain nitrates; nitrates and bacteria-generated derivatives like nitrites are stored in the body, especially the skin; and then sunshine on the skin, among other processes, generates NO.

Here is dermatologist Richard Weller explaining why nitric oxide may be the reason sunshine is so good for our hearts, and why Scotsmen die so young despite the benefits of malt whisky:

Ammonia-Oxidizing Bacteria

Unfortunately, most of us don’t eat enough spinach to optimize our nitrate status. It would be wonderful if there were another way to obtain nitric oxide precursors.

David Whitlock, the scientist-founder of AOBiome, realized that there is. He was wondering why horses and other animals wallow in the mud, and realized that they might be obtaining probiotic bacteria for the skin from the soil.

Investigation revealed that a class of bacteria called ammonia-oxidizing bacteria are present in soil and, when they colonize the skin, can transform ammonia excreted in sweat to nitrite which can be re-absorbed by the body. These “AOBs” not only improve nitric oxide status, they improve body odor by eliminating ammonia. But they are destroyed by soaps and chlorinated water. Since most people use soap, take chlorinated showers, and rarely wallow naked in the mud, we lack these AOBs.

So AOBiome came up with the idea of a skin probiotic – some AOBs dissolved in water that you spritz on your skin after a morning shower, to re-colonize your skin each morning.

AOBiome has a variety of information on their web site if you’d like to read more: information about the skin microbiome in general, how modern lifestyle has changed it, why having a healthy skin microbiome is an important part of health, and the basics about the bacteria in the AO+ Mist.

Thank You, AOBiome

The Perfect Health Retreats represent our best effort to develop natural ancestral healing methods based on diet, lifestyle, and a healthful environment. Microbes are an important part of our environment, and managing our microbial environment has the potential to significantly improve health.

AO+Mist has not been tested in clinical trials, and there is no direct evidence that it will be beneficial to health. But the mechanisms seem logical, and I’m delighted that our guests will have a way to obtain ammonia-oxidizing skin bacteria without nakedness or mud. Thank you, AOBiome!

You don’t have to attend the retreat to benefit from AOBiome’s generosity. For readers of our blog, AOBiome is offering a 25% discount. Go here to purchase AO+Mist and use the coupon code phd25 for your discount.