Researchers have recently discovered that drinking 500ml of beetroot juice daily helps reduce high blood pressure significantly. Their research suggests that beetroot juice’s dietary nitrate content (found both in beetroot juice and green leafy veggies) plays a significant role in this reduction – rather than being solely attributable to antioxidant content like was once believed.
Researchers observed a reduction in healthy participants within just 1 hour after drinking beetroot juice, reaching its maximum reduction 3-4 hours post consumption; further reduction was noticed up to 24 hours postconsumption.
Researchers found that blood pressure reduction resulted from the formation of nitrite from juice’s dietary nitrate. When swallowed, this saliva containsing the nitrite is transformed by tongue bacteria into nitric oxide which then enters stomach acidity for processing or simply back into circulation as nitrite.
Peak blood pressure reduction time corresponded with peak circulating nitrite levels; an effect that was missing in participants who did not swallow their saliva while drinking beetroot juice and for 3 hours afterwards.
Over 25% of the worldwide population are currently hypertensive, and it’s projected that number will grow to 29% by 2025. Hypertension accounts for roughly 50% of coronary heart diseases and about 75% of strokes.
Research suggests that drinking beetroot juice regularly improves both blood pressure and endurance for elderly individuals with preserved ejection fraction heart failure.
Exercise intolerance, fatigue and breathlessness with regular exertion is a hallmark symptom of preserved ejection fraction heart failure; in part this could be attributable to non-cardiac factors reducing oxygen delivery to active skeletal muscles.
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is an emerging cardiovascular condition, reflecting how well the left ventricle pumps with each heart beat. Most commonly found among older women and accelerating rapidly as cardiovascular condition.
Emerging evidence demonstrates that supplementing with inorganic nitrate has an immense positive effect on oxygen metabolism, exercise capacity, vascular health and blood pressure regulation.
19 individuals participated in a study to see whether taking one dose of beetroot juice at once or several doses over multiple days would be more effective in improving exercise intolerance.
Blood pressure and aerobic endurance were initially measured after each participant had consumed either a placebo or a single dose of beetroot juice.
All 19 individuals received daily beetroot juice dosage equal to 2.4 ounces which contained around 6 millimoles of inorganic nitrate for seven days, and their blood pressure and endurance measurements were again taken.
Researchers observed that regularly drinking beetroot juice improved aerobic endurance by 24% after one week compared with drinking just once; there was no improvement when cycling time to exhaustion below maximum pace was used as the measure for aerobic endurance.
Another result was that resting systolic blood pressure was significantly lowered through consumption of beetroot juice in both groups – both single dose and daily – by 5-10 mmHg.
