Beetroot juice good for your blood pressure, even if you’ve suffered heart failure

Drinking around 2.4 ounces of juice – which contains 6 millimoles of inorganic nitrate – every day improved aerobic endurance by 24 per cent after just one week, and reduced systolic blood pressure by 5 to 10 mmHg.

The juice was given to 19 elderly people with heart failure whose shortness of breath and fatigue made any exercise or exertion difficult. They were given a placebo, or ‘dummy’ drink or one glass of the juice, before the entire group was given the juice, which they drank every day for a week.

There were no adverse reactions or side effects from drinking the juice, said researchers from the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre.

(Source: JACC: Heart Failure, 2016; doi: 10.1016/j.chf.2015.12.013)

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