Can Eating a Beet Daily Prevent Heart Disease?

After menopause, women experience a significant increase in their risk of heart disease. To enhance heart and blood vessel health in postmenopausal women, Penn State researchers investigated the effects of beetroot juice on blood vessel function.

According to findings published today (June 10) in Frontiers in Nutrition, daily consumption of beetroot juice by postmenopausal women may improve blood vessel function sufficiently to lower future heart disease risk.

Beetroot juice is rich in nitrate, which the body converts into nitric oxide. Nitric oxide aids in the expansion of blood vessels, facilitating smoother blood flow through the circulatory system.

Researchers noted that nitric oxide’s ability to dilate blood vessels is particularly beneficial during times of restricted blood flow and oxygen delivery, such as during a heart attack.

Investigating Nitrate-Rich Beetroot Juice Effects

David Proctor, a professor of kinesiology and physiology at Penn State, and Jocelyn Delgado Spicuzza, who completed her doctorate in integrative and biomedical physiology at Penn State in May, led a multidisciplinary research team to study the effects of nitrate-rich beetroot juice on blood vessel health in 24 postmenopausal women in their 50s and 60s.

“After menopause, women stop producing estrogen, which helps sustain nitric oxide levels in the body,” explained Delgado Spicuzza, the study’s lead author and current SAFE-T center research project manager.

“This reduction in nitric oxide contributes to the significant rise in heart disease risk for postmenopausal women. Foods high in nitrate, particularly beets, are being explored as a natural, non-pharmaceutical method to support heart and blood vessel health.”

Nitrate is approved as a food additive in some animal products, like processed meats, but is tightly regulated due to potential cancer risks, Delgado Spicuzza noted.

Conversely, plants such as beets, spinach, and lettuce naturally accumulate nitrate from the soil, and these plant-based nitrates offer cardiovascular benefits because the body can convert them to nitric oxide, unlike nitrates added to meats.

Beetroot Juice Intervention and Vascular Function Assessment

In the study, participants had their vascular function tested at the Penn State Clinical Research Center, then consumed two 2.3-ounce bottles of beetroot juice as an initial dose, followed by one bottle each morning for a week.

All participants consumed concentrated beetroot juice, with each serving containing as much nitrate as three large beets. Several weeks later, participants drank beetroot juice with the nitrate removed.

Neither the researchers nor the participants knew which type of juice was being consumed during testing. The day after their last dose, participants returned for another vascular function test.

The researchers compared how well blood vessels expanded for each woman when consuming nitrate-rich beetroot juice versus the nitrate-free version.

The researchers employed an ultrasound sensor to monitor blood flow through the brachial artery in the upper arm, which supplies blood to the hands, during a stress test. In this test, blood flow was restricted in each participant’s forearm for five minutes. Upon removing the restriction, they measured changes in blood flow in the brachial artery again.

Cardiovascular Benefits of Nitrate-Rich Beetroot Juice

Results indicated that daily consumption of nitrate-rich beetroot juice improved blood flow compared to when participants consumed nitrate-free beetroot juice.

The researchers noted that maintaining this level of improved blood-vessel function over the postmenopausal years could significantly reduce the risk of heart disease. While the long-term health benefits of beetroot juice specifically have not been studied, the benefits of nitrate-rich vegetables are well-established.

“Women may need to consume beetroot juice daily—or even more frequently—to gain all potential cardiovascular benefits,” said Proctor. “However, this research demonstrates that beetroot juice can be highly effective in protecting blood vessel health in mid-life women during a period of increasing heart disease risk.”

The study included both early postmenopausal women (one to six years post-menopause) and late postmenopausal women (six or more years post-menopause), with both groups experiencing the same benefits.

Delgado Spicuzza highlighted that the team was particularly excited to find improvements in blood vessel health for women who had gone through menopause years earlier. Some treatments for cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women, such as hormone therapy, are only safe within the first few years post-menopause and can increase the risk of cancers and stroke afterward.

Promoting Beetroot Juice for Cardiovascular Health

“Some clinicians are already recommending beetroot juice for men and women with high blood pressure,” Delgado Spicuzza said. “By offering a safe and effective way to improve blood vessel function, beets could help maintain cardiovascular health in postmenopausal women. Considering that most women are postmenopausal for at least a third of their lives, the potential significance of these findings becomes clear.”

Delgado Spicuzza received the Mid-Atlantic American College of Sports Medicine 2023 Doctoral Student Investigator Award for her presentation on this research in the fall of 2023. She expressed satisfaction in seeing this research resonate with fellow researchers and particularly with the women involved in the study, many of whom expressed an intention to continue consuming beetroot juice after the study ended.

“Several participants mentioned their plans to keep incorporating beetroot juice into their diets,” she noted.

“There seems to be a genuine interest among postmenopausal women in supporting their cardiovascular health without relying on additional medications. I believe beets can serve as a complementary food to enhance blood vessel health for millions of women as they age.”

Collaborators and Funding Support

Contributors to this research included Jigar Gosalia, a graduate student in kinesiology at Penn State;

Mary Jane De Souza, distinguished professor of kinesiology and physiology at Penn State; Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State;

Michael Flanagan, doctor of family medicine at Penn State Health; Liezhou Zhong, postdoctoral research fellow at Edith Cowan University in Australia;

Catherine Bondonno, senior research fellow at Edith Cowan University in Australia;

Elmira Alipour, clinical research coordinator at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center;

Daniel Kim-Shapiro, professor of physics and Harbert Family Distinguished Chair for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship at Wake Forest University; and Yasina Somani, assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

The researchers expressed gratitude to Cyndi Flanagan and Christa Oelhaf, nurses in the Clinical Research Center, for their contributions to the study. Funding for this research was provided by the National Institutes of Health and the Huck Endowment for Nutritional Research in Family and Community Medicine at Penn State College of Medicine and University Park.

Read the original article in ScienceDaily

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