site navigation:
the link
blood pressure and beetroot juice
According to the Blood Pressure Association there are about 16 million people in the UK with a blood pressure higher than 140/90mmHg - the upper limit of normal.
This means that one in every three adults now have high blood pressure, with larger numbers affected in older age groups.
Sometimes the first symptom will be a stroke or heart attack (yes, you should go and get tested now!). Current treatment is with tablets but unfortunately many patients, especially if they do not feel unwell, do not like taking tablets every day and the treatment is essentially lifelong.
This is what makes the recent research by a group of doctors at St. Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital particularly important.
They have shown that a daily dose of natural beetroot juice can have as much effect on blood pressure in healthy volunteers as a conventional tablet prescribed by a doctor.
Full details on the research are published by Hypertension - the Journal of the American Heart Association "Acute Blood Pressure Lowering, Vasoprotective and Antiplatelet Properties of Dietary Nitrate via Bioconversion to Nitrite". This is available on the Hypertension website.