Smile every chance to get. Being happy and smiling exudes beauty. People want to be around smiley happy people and people tend to avoid those that aren’t happy and don’t smile.
As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Nathan S. Bryan
As a pioneering figure in the field of nitric oxide research, Dr. Nathan Bryan Ph.D., has teamed up with Pneuma Nitric Oxide, LLC to create a category of beauty products known as Nitriceuticals. Dr. Bryan’s research has led to the development of Nitric Oxide based skincare and wellness products that promote beauty and anti-aging on the molecular level. He holds more than a dozen issued U.S. and international patents for his breakthrough techniques in human physiology and disease management.
Dr. Nathan Bryan, Ph.D. earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. He went on to receive his doctoral degree from the Louisiana State University School of Medicine. Devoted to research, Dr. Bryan pursued his post-doctoral training as a Kirschstein Fellow at Boston University School of Medicine and held a faculty position at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He was the first to describe nitrite and nitrate as indispensable nutrients required for optimal cardiovascular health and has since made many seminal discoveries. He is an international leader in molecular medicine and nitric oxide biochemistry.
As a highly sought-after doctor, researcher, and speaker, Dr. Nathan Bryan Ph.D. has written numerous research papers and books. He travels the globe to educate and create awareness regarding the essential nature of nitric oxide production in the body and what happens when one becomes deficient as we age. One of those books, Functional Nitric Oxide Nutrition, was designed to help the everyday person understand this “miracle molecule” and how it affects everything from cardiovascular health and the immune system to the aging process of the skin.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have always had an interest in science and medicine even in high school. I pursued a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. During that time, I was involved in undergraduate research and fell in love with the feeling of discovery. I then went on the LSU School of Medicine to continue my pursuit of knowledge of how the human body works. It was during my time and research at LSU that I was introduced to nitric oxide. A Nobel Prize had just been awarded for the discovery of nitric oxide so it was an exciting time in research to learn more about how this molecule worked in the human body. From that point on and now for twenty years, I have devoted my entire life’s work to trying to answer four important questions:
- How does the human body make nitric oxide?
- What goes wrong in people that cannot naturally produce it?
- What are the clinical consequences of insufficient nitric oxide production?
- How can we restore and recapitulate nitric oxide based signaling in humans?
I’m happy to report that we now have answers to these four critical questions that have and will continue to have a profound impact on the aging process as well as health and disease.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. I have actually lived and experienced this quote by Schopenhauer. When I first made my discoveries on nitric oxide and developed product technology, I was ridiculed by my academic colleagues for trying to commercialize my discoveries. After several years, the ridicule turned to violent opposition. My technology was opposed by several big pharmaceutical companies, opposed by competing companies and even opposed by my colleagues in the nitric oxide field. Now almost 20 years later, it is becoming self-evident. Now many people and many companies are talking about nitric oxide and how important it is for health, wellness and beauty. It is evident how important it is, and I am not the only one speaking on its importance. It would have been easy to quit and cave into the ridicule and opposition but I persisted because I knew it was important and it would change the world.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
Just like any scientist, you hope for a “Eureka” moment. That moment for me came the day that I was able to detect and quantify nitric oxide gas being generated when I combined certain components and conditions that mimicked what may happen in the human body. I knew then that I had a way to generate nitric oxide safely and effectively in humans and I knew that my discovery had the potential to change the world. At that point, I knew that I had to educate the masses on the importance of nitric oxide and create a market for my discoveries. From the time I started researching nitric oxide until I filed my first patent was nearly 7 years. The lesson is to maintain focus and persistence and to never give up. Things do not happen overnight. Through the many failures and unsuccessful experiments, I took my learnings and then redesigned new experiments that would eventually get me to the important answers.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
C. Thomas Caskey, M.D. was the Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at the time of my discoveries. Dr. Caskey is a prominent medical geneticist and biomedical entrepreneur who has made many seminal discoveries in genetics and has been successful at translating these discoveries into successful business enterprises. As a young scientist not trained in business or entrepreneurship, Dr. Caskey encouraged me and guided me on how to proceed. He became one of my biggest fans and supporters. However, at first, he was a major critic and asked the really hard and tough questions to make sure that I could meet the scientific rigor with my discoveries and product technology. This prepared me to go above and beyond what was required to bring my technology to market and be able to anticipate criticism and potential objections to what I was doing. Today Dr. Caskey remains a close friend and colleague and for that I am forever grateful.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?
I have developed a nitric oxide producing skin serum. We know that aging results from loss of nitric oxide production. Nitric oxide is what controls and regulates blood flow, oxygen and nutrient delivery to every cell in our body. Without nitric oxide, circulation is compromised, cells do not get what they need to do their job and they eventually fail. On the skin, this results in appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, loss of hydration and collagen and increased inflammation. These are all outward signs of aging. There are many reasons people lose the ability to generate nitric oxide including poor diet, smoking, exposure to harsh chemicals and toxins, etc. My technology restores the production of nitric oxide which then floods the cells of the skin with oxygen and nutrients so they can do their job and regenerate healthy cells that work properly. The beauty of the nitric oxide technology is that you can actually see it working within seconds. Once you apply the nitric oxide serum, you can see the skin turn a shade of pink demonstrating the product is working to restore tone, texture and complexion. This is the only product on the market that gets to the root cause of aging. All other products are designed to “mask” or hide the signs of aging. Our product technology will help people fix the reason their skin is aging by providing a missing component to what their body needs to heal and fix itself. Nitric oxide is the key to healthy aging and our product is the only product in the world that generates nitric oxide to restore what the body is missing.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Dose dictates poison. Too little nitric oxide is bad and too much can be bad. So we have to deliver the right amount of nitric oxide in the right place at the right time. In my 20 years of nitric oxide research, we know how much nitric oxide the body normally produces. Our objective is to give back what is missing, not more and not less. We know how to do that and this is what our product delivers. When used as directed there should not be any unintended consequences with our product technology
Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?
- It is exciting when we can translate new and important scientific discoveries into consumer products that will transform their appearance and confidence.
- The beauty-tech industry is focused on constant innovation and discovery. This is much different that the world of skin care and beauty where there are many “me too” products
- Utilizing science, we can begin to understand the root cause of many signs of aging and then create products that fix the underlying issue rather than hiding or masking the signs of aging.
Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?
I think in general the industry does a great job at reaching and educating consumers. However, the only suggestion that I would make is that there should be more scientific evidence behind beauty products so that consumers could make an informed decision about what product may be best for them and their individual skin type and needs.
You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Smile every chance to get. Being happy and smiling exudes beauty. People want to be around smiley happy people and people tend to avoid those that aren’t happy and don’t smile.
- Drink plenty of pure, clean water. We need hydration for our body to work. However, municipal water is toxic with fluoride, chlorine, drug metabolites and toxic chemicals. Drink 2–4 liters of filtered clean water every day.
- Sweat every day. Part of the way our body detoxifies itself is through sweating. However, hardly anyone sweats anymore. We need to sweat to rid the toxins from our body and from our skin. I recommend using an infrared sauna. It provides energy and heat, so the body gets the energy it needs and the heat allows us to sweat to eliminate toxins.
- Walk barefoot on the ground for at least 10 minutes every day. The Earth is a big magnet that gives off electrons as energy. Our body needs energy for the cells to do their job.
- Get at least 20 minutes of exercise daily. We need to keep moving. Exercise helps stimulate nitric oxide production, protects the cardiovascular system, helps us lose weight and it allows us to sweat, all of which are important.
These five things will not only make you “feel” beautiful, but scientific evidence reveals it will make you healthy on the inside and outside.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
My movement would be an education campaign on nitric oxide. Most people do not even know what nitric oxide is or how it affects their health and beauty. We know that loss of nitric oxide is the earliest event in the onset and progression of most if not all age-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, the number one killer of men and women worldwide. However, most people have no idea on whether their body is producing enough nitric oxide or even how to implement simple lifestyle changes that could improve their nitric oxide production. There are over 170,000 published scientific papers on nitric oxide and the science is clear. Your body cannot and will not heal until to restore the production of nitric oxide. It may be the most important molecule produced in the human body. Whether it is outward beauty or the function of the heart and blood vessels, nitric oxide is necessary for optimal health and beauty.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Do today what others won’t so you can do tomorrow what others can’t”. For me success is about going above and beyond and making sacrifices. Many people are unwilling to make this sacrifice for success and as a consequence have to sacrifice later in life by continuing to have to work after retirement age or their health suffers from not doing the things they needed to do early on in life.
How can our readers follow you online?
@DrNitric
https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnathansbryan/
https://www.facebook.com/nathan.bryan.16
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Dr. Nathan Bryan: “Smile every chance to get; Being happy and smiling exudes beauty” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.