A glass of beetroot juice a day could save your life, according to Hypertension, the journal of the American Heart Association.Beetroot is rich in antioxidants and contains calcium and phosphorous while providing nearly 5mg of vitamin C per 100mg. So it's all good for you.
According to the journal patients who drank a glass of the juice once a day were found to have significantly lower blood pressure just 24 hours later. Researchers at the William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University in London compared patients who were given a 250ml glass of beetroot juice a day with those who took nitrate tablets. They found that the two methods were equally successful in reducing blood pressure.
The nitrates in the juice produce a gas known as nitric oxide which widens blood vessels and arteries and lowers blood pressure. High blood pressure, or hypertension, affects 16 million of us and is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and kidney failure.
Scientists have already shown how drinking beetroot juice can boost stamina. Last year researchers from the University of Exeter and Peninsula Medical School found that it could have as much effect as a punishing training regime. They found that healthy young men were able to increase their stamina by up to 16% after drinking a glass of beetroot juice for a week.
There is one side effect. Those who consume large amounts are likely to experience purple urine, or beeturia as it's known to scientists. A small price to pay I'd say.
Beetroot juice stains anything it touches so make sure you're wide awake before pouring your daily 250ml. I'd drink it before getting dressed for the day.
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Does eating Tyrrells beetroot crisps count? Please?
And I can forsee next month's MSM headline...........
"Scientific research prooves beetroot juice harmful to health".
Please don’t over dramatise or go reading too much into this latest study.
This study was done on only fourteen healthy individuals, half of whom received the juice, the other half received coloured water. The results showed only a short term reduction in blood pressure.
Hardly a large scale or significant clinical sample and certainly not worthy of shouting ‘a cure for blood-pressure’ in relation to the observed and recorded results.
In addition the study found there to be significant differences in effect between men and women. In women it did not work.
Equally, and critically, no comparison studies have been done on individuals who have clinical hypertension.
By all means include beetroot in your ‘five-a-day’ but do not for one minute consider it a cure for hypertension.
Possibly Macheath. :)
Exactly Joe, I wrote this tongue in cheek. I see John has sorted me out. :)
Of course you're right John. I decided to do this post to show some of the propaganda sold to us in papers regularly.
Perhaps I should have ended with the words, of course I'm a cynic although I am fond of beetroot as a vegetable.
There is only one thing that can help the isles at this point. You must have spawn another Robin Hood.
Nobility is defined by ones actions......Robin Hood
According to the journal patients who drank a glass of the juice once a day were found to have significantly lower blood pressure just 24 hours later
Once a day for 24 hours???
Hmmm. And we are expected to believe the REST of their..."science"?
Ah, I wondered who would pick that up Furor. :) This really is an advert for beetroot juice as not so many people grow/eat it these days perhaps.
Didn't Gordon Brown think he was a kind of Robin Hood Mick? Maybe I'm wrong...
I thought you had posted an obscure video by a post-punk goth band there for a minute...
Auch Conan, you're always a couple of steps ahead of me. :)
Does it go well with a dram?
Before now after I should think Dram. ;)
'This really is an advert for beetroot juice'
Oddly enough, I noticed last week that my local supermarket had taken to stocking beetroot juice - just one brand, prominently displayed.
Doesn't surprise me in the least Macheath. I suppose it makes a change from orange juice, although I do my own apple and carrot which I prefer.
I must give it a try.
- Aangirfan
Aangifran, I thought you were on holiday. Auch well, I suppose there are worse things to do than try beetroot juice. You could resort to Tesco's orange for a start. :)
http://dublinmick.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/when-the-forces-of-raunch-decay-or-on-the-march-the-london-corporation-can-soon-be-found-not-far-behind/
Thanks for the link Mick. Intriguing stuff.
I shouldn't post this but this country has gone crazy. There is nothing that could bring my blood pressure down at this point.
Oilgeddon
http://www.theamericansheeple.com/specialpublication.html
That certainly is a worry Mick, much more than climate change in my book.
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