At first, the scientific community was skeptical of the researchers' findings about the beneficial effects of the gas, better known as an air pollutant. In the future, this body of knowledge pioneered by Murad, and colleagues Robert F. Furchgott, Ph.D., and Louis J. Ignarro, Ph.D., will be used to create new medications. Today, the gas gives premature infants with pulmonary hypertension time for further lung development. It also helps some infants with congenital heart defects. The principles of nitric oxide may be used to make stronger heart drugs, said Murad, because long-term nitroglycerine use can result in loss of effectiveness.
Researchers look to nitric oxide to treat cancer.
But it has to be balanced just so, delivering enough nitric oxide to kill the tumor cells but not so much that it causes the body to go into shock. Arthritis sufferers may be helped by controlling the creation of the gas in the body's cells. Too much nitric oxide releases cytokine injuring synovial membranes inside a knee, hip or ankle. Slowing or stopping that production could prevent tissue destruction and ease pain.