Beetroot Juice Might Taste Like Soil, But It Could Help Lower Blood Pressure

This Could Help Lower High Blood Pressure
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While it tastes a little earthy and leaves you with rouge lips, drinking beetroot juice daily could be super beneficial for your health.

And yes, we're talking lowering high blood pressure.

Research suggests that drinking the root vegetable in juice form every day for four weeks could significantly lower blood pressure in hypertensive patients, while also relaxing the arteries and improving blood-vessel function.

It is believed that this is because the vegetable contains nitrate - which, when ingested, is converted by the body into nitric oxide, a chemical thought to be responsible for lowering blood pressure.

"Beetroot and beetroot juice, along with green leafy vegetables, cabbage and celery, are very useful as part of a balanced diet as their nitrate content may help to reduce blood pressure," Alison Hornby, a dietitian and BDA spokesperson told NHS Choices, when trying to get to the bottom of whether beetroot is good for you.

"Getting active, reducing the amount of salt in your diet and maintaining a healthy weight are also key strategies for getting your blood pressure under control."

Between 2011-2013, researchers trialled the effects of daily consumption of beetroot juice on 64 patients who all had uncontrolled or persistent high blood pressure.

Half of the subjects consumed an eight ounce bottle of beetroot juice every morning at the same time. Meanwhile the other half received the same amount of beetroot with the nitrate removed.

The findings of the report, published in the journal Hypertension, found that dietary nitrate could be offered as an "affordable, readily-available and adjunctive treatment" for managing patients with high blood pressure.

In other words, a daily glass of beet juice won't hurt you.