Joy Kong, MD explains how nitric oxide affects aging through vasodilation, stem cell mobilization, and telomere length. The molecule widens blood vessels, mobilizes repair cells, and may slow the shortening of telomeres that marks cellular aging.
I know you're a huge researcher. What kind of research have you done or have you seen that's looking at different aspects of what nitric oxide is doing for our body.
When nitric oxide was first discovered, it was thought to be just a simple vasodilator. It just dilated blood vessels and improved blood flow and tissue oxygen. But today, we understand that it's the signal that tells our own stem cells to mobilize and differentiate. So the older we get, the less nitric oxide we make. The the less we heal and recover from injury or replace and repair dysfunctional cells. Nitric oxide activates an enzyme called telomerase, which prevents telomere short. The telomeres are the ends of the chromosomes that, with each cellular replication, if telomeres get shorter, that's associated and correlated with shorter lifespan. Longer telomeres, longer lifespan. So nitric oxide activates telomerase, prevents telomere shortening.
