Consuming a glass of beetroot juice a day can lower blood pressure in people with hypertension.
Reported in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension, drinking a glass of beetroot juice per day lowered the blood pressure of the volunteers with high pressure. There was no effect on people with normal blood pressure.
Back in 2010, a paper was published in the same journal that found it was the level of nitrates in the beetroot juice that was responsible for the blood pressure lowering effect. The authors also gave a second group of volunteers inorganic nitrate capsules and the same effect was observed.
They suggest the beetroot option provides a natural approach to dealing with high blood pressure.