Drinking beet juice can have a positive health benefit for people dealing with high blood pressure, but a new study found that the effect was limited to older adults.
High blood pressure has been linked to a host of negative health outcomes, from heart attacks to strokes.
An Aug. 22 article by Science Daily says that “drinking nitrate-rich beetroot juice lowered blood pressure in older adults by reshaping their oral microbiome.” The underlying research was published by University of Exeter researchers in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
The study also contained a warning about antiseptic mouthwash. Despite the limitation to older adults in this study, beet juice’s positive health effects for people of all ages have been documented before, and range from exercise stamina to muscle power.
A Researcher Noted That Other Vegetables Also Contain the Key Nitrates
The researchers gave one group of subjects a “placebo beetroot juice,” a second group “nitrate-rich beetroot juice,” and a third group, “antiseptic mouthwash,” according to the study.
According to Science Daily, previous research showed that a “high nitrate diet can reduce blood pressure.” But the new study is the largest of its kind, the publication noted.
“We know that a nitrate-rich diet has health benefits, and older people produce less of their own nitric oxide as they age,” University of Exeter Professor Anni Vanhatalo told Science Daily.
“They also tend to have higher blood pressure, which can be linked to cardiovascular complications like heart attack and stroke. Encouraging older adults to consume more nitrate-rich vegetables could have significant long term health benefits. The good news is that if you don’t like beetroot, there are many nitrate-rich alternatives like spinach, rocket, fennel, celery and kale.”
Study Participants Were Given Shots of ‘Concentrated Beetroot Juice’
The researchers in the new study gave subjects “a concentrated beetroot juice ‘shot’ twice a day for two weeks,” and found that older participants’ blood pressure declined, but younger participants’ did not. A “vegetable-rich” diet can be a source of nitrate, according to the study.
“Imbalances in the oral microbial community, and poor dental health, have been associated with impaired cardiovascular health,” they noted.
The study also noted that “the use of chlorhexidine containing mouthwash, which suppresses oral bacteria, elevated blood pressure in healthy adults…and in older people with treated hypertension.”
The researchers found that “dietary nitrate represents an acceptable and cost-effective dietary intervention to enhance cardiovascular health in older age via modification of the oral microbiome.”
Another study, published in the Frontiers in Nutrition journal in 2022, also found that “Beetroot juice (BRJ) is rich in nitrate (NO3) and has the potential to reduce blood pressure (BP).”
