Beetroot is extremely good for you and the vegetable is one of the richest sources of folic acid, something that is essential for normal tissue growth
It is also a rich source of carbohydrate, protein and has high levels of important minerals as well as vitamins – A, B6 and C – plus powerful antioxidants.
Tests have also shown it has high levels of folate that can protect against high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Beetroot juice boosts stamina by making muscles more fuel-efficient, scientists have found.
The same researchers said last year that the red vegetable juice can increase physical endurance.
The study focused on men aged 19 to 38 cycling on exercise bikes.
Drinking half a litre of beetroot juice a day for a week enabled them to cycle 16 per cent longer before getting tired out.
Now the scientists believe they understand how the beetroot boost works.
They found that drinking beetroot juice doubled the amount of nitrate in the blood of volunteers, and reduced the rate at which muscles used their main source of energy.
Beetroot juice helped muscles work more efficiently and lowered their oxygen uptake.
Study leader Professor Andy Jones, from the University of Exeter’s School of Sport and Health Sciences, said: ‘Since our first study came out we have seen growing interest in the benefits of drinking beetroot juice in the world of professional sport.
‘I expect this study to attract even more attention from athletes.’
Drinking beetroot was found to increase blood nitrate levels and reduce muscle usage of adenosine triphosphate, the body’s chief energy source
The bright-red juice contains the chemical nitrate, which dramatically reduces blood pressure, cutting the risk of heart disease and strokes.
Patients who drank a glass of beetroot juice a day were found to have significantly lower blood pressure just 24 hours later.
The findings, published in Hypertension, the journal of the American Heart Association, could now see beetroot juice being used as a treatment.
Researchers at William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University in London compared patients who were given a 250ml glass of beetroot juice a day with those who took nitrate tablets.
They found that the two methods were equally successful in reducing blood pressure.
The researchers concluded that the nitrates which naturally occur in beetroot are the cause of its beneficial effects.
They produce a gas known as nitric oxide in the blood which widens blood vessels and arteries and lowers blood pressure.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects 16million Britons – one in five – and is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and kidney failure.
Amrita Ahluwalia, Professor of Vascular Biology at the William Harvey Research Insti tute, said: ‘We showed that beetroot and nitrate capsules are equally effective in lowering blood pressure indicating that it is the nitrate content of beetroot juice that underlies its potential to reduce blood pressure.
‘We also found that only a small amount of juice is needed – just 250ml – to have this effect, and that the higher the blood pressure at the start of the study the greater the decrease caused by the nitrate.
‘Our previous study two years ago found that drinking beetroot juice lowered blood pressure; now we know how it works.’
Scientists have already showed how drinking beetroot juice can boost stamina.
Last year researchers from the University of Exeter and Peninsula Medical School found that it could have as much effect as a punishing training regime.
They found that healthy young men were able to increase their stamina by up to 16 per cent after drinking a glass of beetroot juice for a week.
Beetroot juice is found in most health food shops and usually costs around £2 a bottle.
Though very good for your body, it has one rather alarming side-effect.
Those who consume large amounts are likely to experience purple urine, or beeturia as it is known to scientists.
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July 26th, 2010 at 12:47 am
The beet (Beta vulgaris) is a plant in the amaranth family. It is best known in its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known of which is probably the red or purple root vegetable known as the beetroot or garden beet. However, other cultivated varieties include the leaf vegetables chard and spinach beet, as well as the root vegetables sugar beet, which is important in the production of table sugar, and mangelwurzel, which is a fodder crop. Three subspecies are typically recognised. All cultivated varieties fall into the subspecies Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, while Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima, commonly known as the sea beet, is the wild ancestor of these and is found throughout the Mediterranean, the Atlantic coast of Europe, the Near East, and India. A second wild subspecies, Beta vulgaris subsp. adanensis, occurs from Greece to Syria.
The beet has a long history of cultivation stretching back to the second millennium BC. The plant was probably domesticated somewhere along the Mediterranean, whence it was later spread to Babylonia by the 8th century BC and as far east as China by 850 AD. Available evidence, such as that provided by Aristotle and Theophrastus suggests that the leafy varieties of the beet were grown primarily for most of its history, though these lost much of their popularity much later following the introduction of spinach. The beet became highly commercially important in 19th century Europe following the development of the sugar beet in Germany and the discovery that sucrose could be extracted from them, providing an alternative to tropical sugar cane. It remains a widely cultivated commercial crop for producing table sugar.
Beta vulgaris is a herbaceous biennial or rarely perennial plant with leafy stems growing to 1–2 m tall. The leaves are heart-shaped, 5–20 cm long on wild plants (often much larger in cultivated plants). The flowers are produced in dense spikes, each flower very small, 3–5 mm diameter, green or tinged reddish, with five petals; they are wind-pollinated. The fruit is a cluster of hard nutlets.
July 28th, 2010 at 2:12 am
Beetroot juice boosts stamina by making muscles more fuel-efficient, scientists have found.
Last year the same researchers reported that the juice can increase physical endurance. The study focused on men aged 19 to 38 cycling on exercise bikes. Drinking 500ml of beetroot juice a day for a week enabled them to cycle 16 per cent longer before getting tired out. Now the scientists believe they understand how the beetroot boost works.
The new research showed beetroot juice doubled the amount of nitrate in the blood of volunteers, and reduced the rate at which muscles used their main source of energy. Beetroot juice helped muscles work more efficiently and lowered their oxygen uptake.
The scientists, from the University of Exeter’s School of Sport and Health Sciences, believe nitrate from beetroot juice leads to increased levels of nitric oxide in the body, which affects a range of functions including blood flow, hormone levels and cell signalling. The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
The study’s leader, Professor Andy Jones, said: “We have seen growing interest in the benefits of drinking beetroot juice in the world of professional sport and I expect this study to attract even more attention from athletes.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/beetroot-juice-found-to-boost-stamina-1977662.html
October 4th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Some experts say adding beetroot juice to your diet — like other foods such as cherry juice or milk — could provide a performance boost even beyond the blood, sweat and tears of more training.
In two studies conducted at Exeter University on 15 men, Stephen Bailey and colleagues found cyclists who drank a half-litre of beetroot juice several hours before setting off were able to ride up to 20 percent longer than those who drank a placebo blackcurrant juice.
By examining the cyclists under a scanner that analyses how much energy is needed for a muscle to contract, Bailey and colleagues discovered beetroot juice allows cyclists to exercise using less oxygen than normal.
“The beetroot juice was effective even without any additional training,” Bailey said. “It reduces the energy requirements on your muscles so you can last longer.” While the beetroot juice was provided free by its manufacturer, Exeter University paid for the research.
Bailey said the high nitrate content of beetroot juice is responsible for its athletic benefits. Scientists aren’t exactly sure how it works, but suspect having more nitric oxide in your body, a byproduct of nitrate, helps you exercise with less oxygen. Bailey said the same effects might be possible if people ate more nitrate-rich foods like beetroot, lettuce or spinach.
Bailey and colleagues calculated beetroot juice could translate into a 1 to 2 per cent better race time, a tiny improvement likely only to matter to elite athletes. They are still tweaking the dosage but say athletes should consume the juice a few hours before training so their body has time to digest it. Their latest study was published in June in the Journal of Applied Physiology.
“Drinking beetroot juice is not going to turn a recreational runner into an Olympic champion, but it might make tolerating more exercise easier so you can train more,” said Dr. Andy Franklyn-Miller, a sports medicine expert at the Centre for Human Performance in London. He was not connected to the research and has not received any funding from beetroot juice makers.
Franklyn-Miller said since people often reach an athletic plateau where more training doesn’t help, beetroot juice could give you an extra edge you wouldn’t get otherwise.
“It’s not banned, so there’s no reason not to try it,” he said. Still, he warned drinking too much of the juice could lead to side effects like abdominal cramps, diarrhea or purple urine.
Previous studies in Britain and the US have found beetroot helps the heart by lowering blood pressure.
Other experts warned manipulating your diet can’t replace the benefits of training. “Certain foods can help you maximize the benefits from exercise, not reduce the amount you’re doing,” said Roger Fielding, director of the Nutrition, Exercise Physiology and Sarcopenia Laboratory at Tufts University. He was not connected to any research on beetroot or any other nutritional supplements.
For serious athletes, Fielding said changing your diet could help. “If a very small improvement is valuable to you, it’s possible something like beetroot juice could do that,” he said.
Other studies have shown drinking things like pickle juice or having a small carbohydrate snack during a marathon, can prevent cramps and improve performance. Scientists have also found cherry juice, which helps reduce exercise-induced swelling, could be strong enough to reduce some athletes’ use of anti-inflammatory pain medication.
Fielding said the benefits of beetroot juice and other foods and drinks could have wider benefits and might one day be used to help elderly people with muscle weakness.
Some elite athletes warned beetroot juice may not be to everybody’s taste. “A few of my friends think it’s really disgusting,” said Colin McCourt, 25, a British runner competing at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi this month.
In April, McCourt started drinking cherry and beetroot juice, which he credits with helping him train longer and more often. “I feel like I get a benefit from it, even if it’s minimal,” he told Associated Press Television.
McCourt said he will continue to adjust his training regimen in preparation for the London 2012 Olympics, but plans to maintain his juice habit. “There will be a lot more beetroot juice if my stomach can take it.”
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:24 am
A new study has shown that drinking beet juice daily can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults.
This finding could hold great potential for combating the progression of dementia.
“There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to the brain,” said Daniel Kim-Shapiro, director of Wake Forest University”s Translational Science Center; Fostering Independence in Aging.
High concentrations of nitrates are found in beets, as well as in celery, cabbage and other leafy green vegetables like spinach and some lettuce. When you eat high-nitrate foods, good bacteria in the mouth turn nitrate into nitrite. Research has found that nitrites can help open up the blood vessels in the body, increasing blood flow and oxygen specifically to places that are lacking oxygen.
In this study, the first to find a link between consumption of nitrate-rich beet juice and increased blood flow to the brain, Translational Science Center researchers looked at how dietary nitrates affected 14 adults age 70 and older over a period of four days.
On the first day, the study subjects reported to the lab after a 10-hour fast, completed a health status report, and consumed either a high- or low-nitrate breakfast. The high-nitrate breakfast included 16 ounces of beet juice. They were sent home with lunch, dinner and snacks conforming to their assigned diets.
The next day, following another 10-hour fast, the subjects returned to the lab, where they ate their assigned breakfasts. One hour after breakfast, an MRI recorded the blood flow in each subject”s brain. Blood tests before and after breakfast confirmed nitrite levels in the body.
For the third and fourth days of the study, the researchers switched the diets and repeated the process for each subject.
The MRIs showed that after eating a high-nitrate diet, the older adults had increased blood flow to the white matter of the frontal lobes – the areas of the brain commonly associated with degeneration that leads to dementia and other cognitive conditions.
The research findings are available online in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society and will be available in print soon.
November 14th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
A new study has revealed that sipping on nutritious beetroot juice, increases your blood flow and dramatically boosts brain power.
It is particularly effective in adults. This finding holds great promise as beetroots maybe the key to combating the progression of dementia.
The interesting discovery came from the US as scientists held an experiment in Wake Forest University. They were originally investigating the effects and benefits of Nitrates found in the purple vegetable.
Professor Daniel Kim Shaprio, head researcher, released this statement: “There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beetroot juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to the brain.
“There are areas in the brain that become poorly perfused as you age, and that’s believed to be associated with dementia and poor cognition.”
You may be wondering why this earthy vegetable brings such promising benefits. Well, beetroot contains a high concentration of nitrates. When we eat foods rich in nitrates, the good bacteria on our mouths transform the nitrate in to ‘Nitrite’.
Many previous investigations in to Nitrites, have proven that they help to open up the blood vessels, consequently increasing the blood flow and oxygen around the body. It specifically pushes the oxygen to parts of the body that are lacking it. However, the researchers at Wake Forest University were to first to discover the fact that nitrates actually increase the blood flow to the brain.
This particular study has been published in the journal of the Nitric Oxide Society. The experiment consisted of examining the behaviour of dietary nitrates affects in 14 adults aged 70 and upwards, over time period of 4 days.
Half the participants were assigned to either a diet of low nitrate foods, whilst the other half had a menu rich in nitrate foods such as beetroot juice. They were to eat these deist for just two days. To accurately examine the results of the nitrate, the participants had a MRI scan each day after breakfast. This was to make a record of the blood flow to each subjects brain.
You may be curious to know what the volunteers did on the third and fourth day? Well, both halves of the group switched diets, and repeated the process.
The results of the the MRI scans, throw out some very interesting data.
The detailed results of the scans showed that the older adults eating a diet rich in nitrates, had increased the flow of oxygenated blood to the white matter of the frontal lobes in the brain. These are the areas of our brains most commonly associated with illnesses such as dementia and other serious cognitive conditions.
Professor Gary Miller, co researcher on the project, said: ‘I think these results are consistent and encouraging – that good diet consisting of a lot of fruits and vegetables can contribute to overall good health.’
Other than delicious beetroot, natural nutritious leafy green vegetables such as spinach and lettuce are also packed full of nitrates, so get munching.
November 20th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Beetroot juice “could save your life” claimed the Daily Mail. It said that the juice contains nitrate, a chemical that reduces blood pressure and therefore cuts the risk of heart disease and stroke.
The research behind this story aimed to look at whether nitrates may be responsible for the blood pressure-lowering effects of beetroot juice. It found that drinking beetroot juice or taking nitrate capsules resulted in short-term reductions in blood pressure in healthy volunteers with normal blood pressure.
The study is limited in that it was in a small number of healthy volunteers (only nine people drank beetroot juice), who were only monitored for three hours. It did not look at long-term outcomes such as heart disease or stroke.
High blood pressure is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and therefore reducing it is often assumed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, whether this is the case will depend on if the effect is great enough, and if the reduction can be sustained over time. Whether drinking beetroot juice can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease would therefore need to be tested in long-term studies that assessed outcomes such as heart disease or stroke.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers the Queen Mary University of London, University College London and the University of Exeter and Plymouth. The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation. Two of the researchers report that they are directors of Heartbeet Ltd, a company linked to commercial producers of organic beetroot juice. The study was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Hypertension.
The BBC News and Daily Mail covered this story. The BBC News headline of, ‘Nitrate content ‘behind benefits of beetroot juice” is a more accurate reflection of the aims and findings of the study than the Mail’s headline, ’Drinking beetroot juice dramatically lowers risk of heart disease and strokes’. The study has not looked at the effects of beetroot juice on either heart disease or stroke, so we cannot say whether it reduces the risk of these outcomes or saves lives. The Mail also suggested that the effects of nitrate tablets and beetroot juice were directly compared, which was not the case.
What kind of research was this?
This randomised crossover trial investigated whether taking nitrate, either within nitrate-rich food or as a supplement capsule, affects blood pressure. The researchers’ previous study found that drinking beetroot juice reduced blood pressure in healthy people. Beetroot is high in the chemical nitrate that, when mixed with saliva in the body, is converted into nitrite, a chemical that causes blood vessels to dilate.
The aim of this research was to test whether the nitrate content of beetroot was responsible for this blood pressure-lowering effect. The researchers say that, ‘determining how vegetables confer protection against [cardiovascular disease] and exploiting this to therapeutic advantage are likely to have considerable health and economic implications’.
The study design involves participants receiving different interventions in a random order. This is an appropriate design for looking at treatments that have only short-term effects. The researchers arranged a minimum break of seven days between each treatment. This was to reduce the chances that the treatment given first would still be having an effect when the second was given.
What did the research involve?
The researchers enrolled healthy volunteers and gave them capsules containing nitrate (potassium nitrate), capsules without nitrate (potassium chloride – to rule out an effect of potassium), beetroot juice, or water. The effects of each treatment on the levels of nitrite in the blood and blood pressure were then monitored for up to 24 hours.
The volunteers were 18 to 45 years old, non-smokers, with BMIs of 18 to 31kg/m2. They were not on medication to treat any medical condition and had normal blood pressure. They were asked to eat a diet low in nitrates during the study (no processed meat or leafy green vegetables).
There were three parts to the study. In each part, volunteers received two different treatments in a random order. The three parts of the study compared:
* potassium nitrate capsules (containing 1488mg nitrate) and potassium chloride capsules in 21 volunteers; participants and researchers did not know which type of capsule was being received
* a lower dose capsule of potassium nitrate and a higher dose capsule of potassium nitrate in six additional volunteers; participants and researchers knew which dose was being received
* 250ml of beetroot juice and 250ml water in nine different volunteers who were monitored for three hours after each drink; participants and researchers knew which drink was being received
There was a minimum of seven days between each treatment received.
Data was analysed by a person who did not know which treatment had been taken before each measurement of nitrite and blood pressure.
What were the basic results?
The researchers found that nitrate capsules were associated with increased levels of nitrite in the blood, and reduced blood pressure over a 24-hour period compared to potassium chloride capsules. Higher-dose nitrate capsules were linked with a greater increase in nitrite concentrations in the blood than lower-dose capsules.
Women had lower blood pressure and higher levels of nitrite in their blood at the start of the study (before any treatment) than men. Women showed a greater increase in nitrite in the blood after taking the nitrate capsules than men, but had smaller reductions in blood pressure.
Drinking beetroot juice also caused the levels of nitrite in the blood to increase over three hours, and systolic blood pressure to decrease by a maximum of 5.4 mmHg compared to drinking water.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that their findings showed dose-dependent decreases in blood pressure after taking a nitrate supplement or eating a food high in nitrate (beetroot). They say their study ‘suggests that a dietary nitrate approach to [cardiovascular disease] may have therapeutic use’.
Conclusion
This small study has shown some reduction in blood pressure with beetroot juice. This finding needs cautious interpretation however, as the study has several features that limit the conclusions that can be drawn from it. These include the fact that it was in only a small number of people (nine who drank beetroot juice) and that all participants were healthy and had normal blood pressure.
Another constraint is that the volunteers who drank beetroot juice were only monitored for three hours, so it is unclear how long this effect may last.
The puzzling result of this study – that more women absorbed nitrate and converted it to nitrite better but had a smaller blood pressure changes when compared with men – needs further explanation.
The researchers offer theories for why this may have happened. However, the fact that the fall in blood pressure in women taking the nitrate capsules appeared to be minimal compared to men, suggests that nitrates (and possibly beetroot juice) may not be effective for everyone, a point not made by the researchers or the newspapers.
High blood pressure is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, therefore reducing it is assumed to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, whether drinking beetroot juice regularly can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or death would need to be tested in long-term studies. Such a study would ideally be a randomised controlled trial and look at the effects of different levels of beetroot consumption.