Health And Pharmacy Blog

In a recent finding, researchers at the Queen Mary University of London have found that two glasses of beetroot juice per day may lower blood pressure by 10mm, a level that can normally be achieved with only proper medication. The study was done on healthy volunteers in UK. The report of the study, led by Amrita Ahluwalia, Professor at the William Harvey Research Institute at Barts and the London School of Medicine, has been published in the latest edition of Hypertension.

According to Dr. Ahluwalia – “This is the kind of drop that would see in people effective drug therapy for high blood pressure”. Anoop Mishra, an internal medicine specialist at Fortis Hospital in New Delhi said “A 10mm fall in blood pressure is very significant”. Compared to this, a reduction of salt in foods causes only 5-6mm decrease in blood pressure.

According to the study on healthy volunteers, the effect of beetroot juice takes place one hour after drinking the juice and reaches its lowest after three to four hours. Sometimes the reduction stays up to twenty four hours. Researchers say that, the blood pressure lowers because of the formation of nitrite from dietary nitrite present in the beetroot. This formation of nitrite also brings into prominence the role bacteria play in the human mouth during the process.

However scientists are not going overboard as it has not yet been tested on patients with high blood pressure. But most agree that the findings of the study are promising enough to proceed to clinical trials. Some also point out that 500ml beetroot per day may add calories and if the patient is suffering from diabetes – there might be some complications