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Nitric oxide is a natural component of mammals and acts as a chemical messenger, regulating blood flow, heart rate, and immune responses. Excessive levels can be toxic and harmful to health, causing low blood pressure, sepsis, and respiratory problems. Nitric oxide is also an industrial pollutant that can cause irritation and breathing difficulties.
Nitric oxide (NO), also called nitric oxide, is an important natural component of the biochemistry of mammals, including humans. In the normal biochemistry of healthy mammals, nitric oxide’s primary function is as a chemical messenger. Healthy levels of nitric oxide are important for the nervous, circulatory and immune systems. Although the effects of nitric oxide are essential to human life, excessive levels, due to endogenous production or environmental exposure, can be toxic.
When the body needs to increase blood flow through the circulatory system, the inner lining of the blood vessels releases nitric oxide into the surrounding smooth muscle tissue in the blood vessel walls. This causes smooth muscle to relax and induces vasodilation or widening of blood vessels. This helps regulate blood flow and blood pressure and allows people to adjust to low-oxygen conditions such as high altitudes. It also causes penile erection during sexual arousal by increasing blood flow to the genitals in response to sexual stimulation. In addition to affecting smooth muscle, it can also affect the heart muscle tissue of the heart to reduce the heart rate.
In the nervous system, nitric oxide functions as a neurotransmitter to carry messages between neurons and is part of the process of memory formation and learning. It is also produced in the stomach, through reactions between stomach acid and nitrate in ingested saliva, to maintain blood flow to the stomach and sterilize food as it is digested. In the immune system, a type of white blood cell called macrophages produces nitric oxide to poison and kill bacteria.
The effects of nitric oxide can be harmful to health in excessive levels. It can aggravate sepsis, because the immune system’s release of large amounts of the chemical in an attempt to kill infectious bacteria can cause the amount to rise to cytotoxic levels, damaging cells in the body. Since one of the effects of nitric oxide is vasodilation, excessive levels can drop blood pressure to dangerously low levels, sending the body into shock.
Nitric oxide can also be harmful when absorbed into the body from the external environment and is a common industrial pollutant. Contact causes irritation of eyes, skin and mucous membranes. Inhalation may interfere with breathing causing coughing and shortness of breath as well as nausea and burning pain in the chest and throat. In addition to initial breathing difficulties, the effects of nitric oxide when inhaled can also include potentially dangerous conditions such as pulmonary edema, a buildup of excess fluid in the lungs, and methemoglobinemia, a blood disorder.
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