Effects of inorganic nitrate and vitamin C co-supplementation on blood pressure and vascular function in younger and older healthy adults: A randomised double-blind crossover trial.

Background: Vitamin C and inorganic nitrate have been linked to enhanced nitric oxide (NO) production and reduced oxidative stress. Vitamin C may also enhance the conversion of nitrite into NO.

Aims: We investigated the potential acute effects of vitamin C and inorganic nitrate co-supplementation on blood pressure (BP) and peripheral vascular function.

Effect of dietary nitrate levels on nitrate fluxes in rat skeletal muscle and liver.

Rodent skeletal muscle has high levels of nitrate ions and this endogenous nitrate reservoir can supply nitrite/nitric oxide (NO) for functional hyperemia and/or for other physiological processes in muscle during exercise. Mice with a NOS1 knockout have markedly reduced muscle nitrate levels, suggesting NO production by NOS and its reaction with oxymyoglobin as a source of nitrate. However, oxygen levels are normally low in most internal organs, which raises the possibility that nitrate-derived NO pathway is physiologically important even at "normoxia", and muscle nitrate reservoir is the main endogenous NO backup when exogeneous (dietary) nitrate intake is low.

Measuring Nitrite and Nitrate, Metabolites in the Nitric Oxide Pathway, in Biological Materials using the Chemiluminescence Method.

Nitric oxide (NO) is one of the main regulator molecules in vascular homeostasis and also a neurotransmitter. Enzymatically produced NO is oxidized into nitrite and nitrate by interactions with various oxy-heme proteins and other still not well known pathways. The reverse process, reduction of nitrite and nitrate into NO had been discovered in mammals in the last decade and it is gaining attention as one of the possible pathways to either prevent or ease a whole range of cardiovascular, metabolic and muscular disorders that are thought to be associated with decreased levels of NO.