Beetroot Juice May Lower Blood Pressure for Some
If you suffer from high blood pressure like 77 other million people in the United States, chances are your doctor has told you to watch your sodium intake.
Here’s another possible strategy to lower that blood pressure through nutrition: pour a glass of beetroot juice.
No, it’s not the typical kind of juice found in kitchens and grocery stories. But a small study recently found that people who have high blood pressure were able to lower their number by 10 mm Hg by drinking eight ounces of beetroot juice daily. The study was published in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.
Although the preliminary results are newsworthy, researchers said it’s too soon to suggest people start supplementing their diet with beetroot juice.
“Our hope is that increasing one’s intake of vegetables with a high dietary nitrate content, such as green leafy vegetables or beetroot, might be a lifestyle approach that one could easily employ to improve cardiovascular health,” said Amrita Ahluwalia, lead author of the study, in a news release from the American Heart Association.
For the small study, eight women and seven men drank about 8.5 ounces of beetroot juice containing about 0.2 grams of dietary nitrate. That’s about the amount of nitrate contained in a large bowl of lettuce or roughly two beetroots. Dietary nitrate eventually converts to nitric oxide, which expands the blood vessels and helps blood flow, according to the news release.
“We were surprised by how little nitrate was needed to see such a large effect,” Ahluwalia said. “This study shows that compared to individuals with healthy blood pressure much less nitrate is needed to produce the kinds of decreases in blood pressure that might provide clinical benefits in people who need to lower their blood pressure. However, we are still uncertain as to whether this effect is maintained in the long term.”
After drinking the beetroot juice, its effects were “most pronounced three to six hours” later, the release states, but continued to lower blood pressure for 24 hours.
The AHA recommends eating eight or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Federal nutrition guidelines suggest making half of every plate at mealtime filled with fruits and vegetables.
Source: American Heart Association
+ Learn More about Controlling Sodium Intake
+ Read about Nutritional Analysis – a program where you work with a Registered Dietitian to understand your body’s nutritional requirements.