Beetroot can lower your Blood Pressure — if you let it

An emerging interest in the role of diet in our health has slowly bubbled up to a trendy, conscientious lifestyle where many aspire to holistic wellness. Countless recipes circulate on social media and progressive cooking shows that tease the eyes and flirt with the belly. This sort of enthusiasm is, well, healthy in that our food needs to be enjoyed, especially since it should be doing well by our bodies. However attempting to follow nutrition advice from discoveries re-presented can be confusing at times (e.g. wine is cited as both protective and detrimental to heart health (1)).

Although multiple diet regimens have little-to-no scientific basis, many diets have a lot of evidence in the scientific literature (2). And beyond positive food psychology, many of our commonplace fruit and veg are being analysed and tested in laboratories for their natural, reproducible medicinal effect.

A case in point is the tool, (or weapon) that around 2 daily glasses of beetroot juice can be to fix elevated blood pressure (3). This comparison of multiple trials calculated that the average effect of beetroot juice was positive (i.e. high blood pressure was reproducibly lowered). The link between beetroot juice and blood pressure management is not an isolated case of whole plant health solutions for chronic diseases and bad health. Decades of individual trials with a variety of whole plants show a total spectrum of defined medicinal benefits against chronic disease and bad health, which are posted daily here.

Photo: PhotoMIX-Company/Pixabay

If this is the case, how can any disease states exist at all? We have all touched an apple or aubergine before! If pomegranates are so potent how is it possible for blood pressure to be a problem? A major indicator in how effective diet can be in ameliorating chronic disease is time: good diet needs a good stretch of time. Taking beetroot juice for less than 2 weeks has a great benefit (i.e. blood pressure is lowered by 2.67 mm Hg), but consumption for 2 weeks or longer has a significantly greater benefit (i.e. lowered by 5.11 mm Hg) (3). This is intuitive, take a healthy thing for longer, and it has more time to improve your health.

But a healthy diet isn’t always a “slow burn”. 3 slices of 100% whole grain rye bread in the evening may improve post-breakfast cholesterol and blood lipids after breakfast 15 hours later (4). Just a handful of brazil nuts may improve blood cholesterol in 9 hours (5), and one glass of purple grape juice may improve mood and cognition in adults after just 25 minutes (6).

However a lot of research indicates that nutrition takes longer to give consumers significant medical benefit. Turmeric may be effective against arthritis, but once again duration of study determines whether the effects of turmeric are captured or missed (7). Walnuts may be able to improve cholesterol profile after 3 months (8).

Incorporating nutrition into treatment of disease is actually an established field known as Integrative medicine, such as considering cinnamon in diabetes mellitus treatment (9). For many with chronic medical conditions and disease, medication is ineffective or patients become resistant to drugs (even when the dose is increased).

As such an informed person can engage with the medicinal power of the whole plant diet for a specific solution, and take their time to watch their condition improve. This means specific health challenges can be treated with specific fruits and veg. We can target ailments we have and possibly treat them with our diets.

Disclaimer: If you have medical concerns, please consult your doctor before implementing the opinions in this article.

N. Baiden, PhD.

(References)

1. Haseeb, S., Alexander, B., and Baranchuk, A. (2017) Wine and Cardiovascular Health A Comprehensive Review. Circulation 136, 1434–1448
2. Joshipura, K. J., Hu, F. B., Manson, J. E., Stampfer, M. J., Rimm, E. B., Speizer, F. E., Colditz, G., Ascherio, A., Rosner, B., Spiegelman, D., and Willett, W. C. (2001) The effect of fruit and vegetable intake on risk for coronary heart disease. Annals of Internal Medicine 134, 1106–1114
3. Bahadoran, Z., Mirmiran, P., Kabir, A., Azizi, F., and Ghasemi, A. (2017) The Nitrate-Independent Blood Pressure-Lowering Effect of Beetroot Juice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Advances in Nutrition 8, 830–838
4. Sandberg, J. C., Bjorck, I. M. E., and Nilsson, A. C. (2017) Effects of whole grain rye, with and without resistant starch type 2 supplementation, on glucose tolerance, gut hormones, inflammation and appetite regulation in an 11–14.5 hour perspective; a randomized controlled study in healthy subjects. Nutrition Journal 16
5. Colpo, E., Vilanova, C., Reetz, L. G. B., Duarte, M., Farias, I. L. G., Meinerz, D. E., Mariano, D. O. C., Vendrusculo, R. G., Boligon, A. A., Corte, C. L. D., Wagner, R., Athayde, M. L., and Da Rocha, J. B. T. (2014) Brazilian nut consumption by healthy volunteers improves inflammatory parameters. Nutrition 30, 459–465
6. Haskell-Ramsay, C. F., Stuart, R. C., Okello, E. J., and Watson, A. W. (2017) Cognitive and mood improvements following acute supplementation with purple grape juice in healthy young adults. European Journal of Nutrition 56, 2621–2631
7. Hewlings, S. J., and Kalman, D. S. (2017) Curcumin: A Review of Its’ Effects on Human Health. Foods 6
8. Rock, C. L., Flatt, S. W., Barkai, H. S., Pakiz, B., and Heath, D. D. (2017) Walnut consumption in a weight reduction intervention: effects on body weight, biological measures, blood pressure and satiety. Nutrition Journal 16
9. Medagama, A. B. (2015) The glycaemic outcomes of Cinnamon, a review of the experimental evidence and clinical trials. Nutrition Journal 14