Beetroot Juice Improves Endurance and Blood Pressure

Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found that a daily dose of beetroot juice significantly improved exercise endurance and blood pressure in elderly patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFPEF).

The study is published in the current online edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology-Heart Failure.

Exercise intolerance — shortness of breath and fatigue with normal amounts of exertion — is the primary symptom of HFPEF and is due partly to non-cardiac factors that reduce oxygen delivery to active skeletal muscles. HFPEF is a recently recognized disease that reflects how the left ventricle of the heart pumps with each beat. It occurs primarily in older women and is the dominant form of heart failure, as well as the most rapidly increasing cardiovascular disorder in this country.

Emerging evidence suggests that dietary inorganic nitrate supplementation has beneficial effects on blood pressure control, vascular health, exercise capacity and oxygen metabolism.


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