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Article: Nitric oxide can save lives.
- Article from:
- Nutrition Health Review
- Article date:
- January 1, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Vegetus Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IOWA CITY, IOWA: Called "the molecule of the year" by Science magazine, nitric oxide has found another use in medicine, this time as a potential lifesaver.
Nitric oxide performs many different tasks in the body. One of its primary jobs is to act as a potent vasodilator, widening narrowed arteries that are constricting blood flow. It should not be confused with nitrous oxide, an anesthetic known as "laughing gas."
A team of anesthesiologists at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, has found that nitric oxide can help save the lives of some patients with life-threatening acute pulmonary hypertension.
Pulmonary hypertension causes the ...