Start drinking beetroot juice after the menopause

If you’ve just gone through the menopause, start drinking a glass of beetroot juice every day—it could keep your cardiovascular system healthy.

Women are at a much higher risk of heart disease after the menopause because the sudden drop in estrogen also causes nitric oxide levels to fall, and it’s essential for keeping the heart and blood vessels healthy.  The nitrates in foods and drinks such as beetroot, spinach and lettuce convert into nitric oxide, and so provide a safe and natural replacement.

Nitric oxide helps blood vessels to expand and improve blood flow, which is especially important when there is a heart attack, say researchers from Penn State.  

They assessed the impact of drinking two 2.3-ounce (65 g) bottles of beetroot juice every day for a week on a group of 24 postmenopausal women; the drink was equivalent to eating three beetroots.  Several weeks later they were given the same juice, but with the nitrates removed.

The nitrate-rich juice improved blood flow, and this was enough to dramatically reduce the chances of heart disease in the postmenopausal woman if it remained part of the daily diet, the researchers said.

Even women who went through the menopause years earlier could benefit from drinking the juice, and it’s a safer alternative to therapies such as HRT, the researchers say.

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