Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hotpotat 320 days ago
If you have trouble in bed, ask yourself if you use Listerine. It kills your mouth’s microbiome and lowers your Nitric Oxide production [0].

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31709856/

3 comments

Humming increases NO as well. Maybe you should hum after taking Listerine for a while? I thought one of Listerine's main (unwritten) selling points was that it helps with sex (smell, prophylaxis for STIs).
I don't use Listerine but I didn't get this: trouble in bed of what kind? I couldn't get it from the linked article.

I never knew high blood pressure correlates with bad sleep or bad sex (if anything, meds for high blood pressure come with negative effects on that).

The physical performance kind. Conversely beet root, L-Citruline, and supplemental NO are commonly used for ED. That’s why medications like tadalafil and sildenafil work. NO relaxes your blood vessels and increases blood flow generally.
Nitric oxide relaxes your blood cells, letting blood flow easier into parts that erect themselves with blood.

Try taking arginine for a week if you want to experience the effect first hand.

> if anything, meds for high blood pressure come with negative effects on that

It’s really a mixed bag.

Recall that Sildenafil (aka brand name Viagra) was originally developed to treat high blood pressure. Turns out that while it does lower blood pressure, it’s really good for improving erections.

> I never knew high blood pressure correlates with bad sleep or bad sex.

I don't know about bad sleep, but definitely bad sex. ED is an early indicator of hypertension.

From personal experience, yes, it does. My blood pressure comes down only when I sleep in a very quiet room with no light.
I was mixing up correlation and causation, which is also some kind of irony my tired/jet lagged brain is too foggy to work out.

Correlation has no causation direction so you are absolutely right.

What I meant is that ED can be caused by hypertension, so if you get ED you should start checking your blood pressure. AFAIK chronic bad sleep doesn’t CAUSE high blood pressure in the same way. Not sleeping well will elevate your blood pressure, but not make it chronically worse. Put differently, if you have trouble sleeping at night, that doesn’t mean you have elevated risk of high blood pressure when rested.

But yeah, if you have high blood pressure (as I do), getting good sleep makes a huge difference in your numbers.

And get sun exposure since your body will synthesize it.
Does sun exposure increase nitric oxide?
Yes