If you’re getting on in years, have suffered from heart failure, and want to improve your exercise endurance, then a daily glass of beetroot juice could be the way to go. And I’d assume this could also be beneficial for those wishing to improve their sport performance in general.
This is not the first time we have blogged about the beneficial effects of drinking beetroot juice. Back in 2013 there was a paper published that found that it could lower blood pressure in people with hypertension (Lower your blood pressure the colourful way).
It appears to be the nitrates present in the beetroot that are responsible for the effect. Indeed, in another paper mentioned in the blog above volunteers were given either beetroot juice, nitrate tablets or a placebo and it was found that the juice and the tablets were both able to lower blood pressure.
In a paper published in journal JACC Heart Failure last week, it was found that a daily drink of beetroot juice was able to improve aerobic endurance by 24% after 1 week. There was also a significant reduction in systolic blood pressure.
If you can’t stomach a glass of the red stuff why not try to put it in your homemade bread (Beetloaf, the new fortified bread?). The one downside of beetroot is that it can also give your urine a disturbing red tinge but you can’t have everything can you.