The Beetroot Benefits That Depend On Your Age

We’ve written before about beetroot’s considerable health benefits: Beetroot For More Than Just Your Blood Pressure

We even covered how to make it better in a surprising way: Beetroot Juice & Caffeine Work Better Than Either Alone

But what’s this about age differences?

Different for younger and older people

Researchers (Dr. Anni Vanhatalo et al.) investigated this, and wondered how much of beetroot’s beneficial effect is due to boosting nitric oxide (NO) production, something that aging typically reduces, but that nitrate-rich beetroot improves.

To test this, they did a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind crossover trial with young adults (18–30) and older adults (67–79). They excluded participants with cardiovascular, metabolic, pulmonary, or oral disease; smokers; anyone with high blood pressure (here defined as >140/90, notwithstanding that the usual standard is >130/90), and anyone who had recently used antibiotics.

The interventions were:

• nitrate-rich beetroot juice (2 × 70 ml/day, ~595 mg nitrate each)
• nitrate-depleted beetroot juice (same quantity of juice, no nitrate, functioning as placebo)
• antiseptic mouthwash (because they suspected that oral bacteria played a role)

These they tested with two-week treatment phases, with washout periods between (since the groups switched roles, being as it was a crossover trial, it was important to ensure that each group was not still being affected by the previous intervention).

What they measured: they did tongue swabs for microbiome sequencing, they checked plasma nitrate/nitrite for NO bioavailability, they also recorded blood pressure (brachial and central), endothelial function (flow-mediated dilation), and arterial stiffness.

What they found:

• Endothelial function and arterial stiffness remained unchanged in all groups. It seems this is simply not something that beetroot juice affects.
• The older adults had higher baseline blood pressure, and/but nitrate-rich beetroot juice lowered brachial mean arterial pressure in older adults while it had no significant effect in younger adults.
• In the category of oral microbiome changes, they found that in older adults, beetroot juice reduced Prevotella-dominated bacterial linked with DNRA (which diverts nitrite away from NO production), and that reduction in Prevotella correlated with higher plasma nitrite and lower blood pressure; nitrate-rich beetroot juice increased nitrate-reducing genera Neisseria and Rothia, especially in older adults, having only modest benefits for younger adults. Antiseptic mouthwash reduced microbial diversity (shocking nobody) and impaired vascular function.
• Nitrate-depleted juice still raised plasma nitrate/nitrite modestly and had a small lowering effect on blood pressure in older adults. This may have been because of:
  • placebo effect doing its thing
  • imperfect depletion of nitrates
  • other unknown factors
  • a combination of the above

In summary: in older adults, beetroot juice improves the oral microbiome and, partly because of that, lowers blood pressure. Younger adults get only marginal benefits at best, and use of antiseptic mouthwash completely wipes out the benefits.

You can read the paper itself, here: Ageing modifies the oral microbiome, nitric oxide bioavailability and vascular responses to dietary nitrate supplementation

Before you get juicing, there are some things you should be aware of: 3 Day Juice Fasting? Not So Fast! ← this isn’t even just about the glycemic index issue (juices being stripped of fiber), and is rather mostly about the microbiome problems juices can cause without sufficient dietary fiber (so, not so much a problem if, for example, you have a juice after a fibrous meal).

Not a fan of juices? This writer doesn’t love juices most of the time either, but we can enjoy: Hearty Healthy Ukrainian Borscht ← from our recipes archive!

Remember when…

…we talked about Dr. Ellie Phillips’ advices with regard to oral health?

In few words, Dr. Phillips promotes protecting oral microbial diversity by avoiding antibacterial mouthwashes; the study we talked about today also validated that, showing how antiseptic mouthwash (unsurprisingly) reduced microbial diversity and (importantly and relevantly) impaired vascular function.

Now, she often points to imbalances where certain bacteria overgrow; this study showed Prevotella dominance (i.e., harmful bacteria being too plentiful) diverts nitrite away from NO production, worsening cardiovascular function—a good example of how oral imbalances have systemic effects.

So, how to kill the bad bacteria without harming the good ones? Critically, diet can feed the protective oral bacteria; here, nitrate-rich beetroot juice improved blood pressure by shifting the oral microbiome towards beneficial nitrate-reducing genera (e.g. the Neisseria and Rothia in this study). As for the rest, Dr. Phillips advocates simple, natural methods (xylitol, remineralizing foods, protective rinses) instead of harsh chemicals. As we’ve learned today, dietary strategies (like beetroot juice) can also play their part as a natural, safe way to help your oral microbiome to help you.

For research on this by a third source, see: Make Your Saliva Better For Your Health

Want to learn more?

With regard to nitrates and health, you might like:

The Nitric Oxide (NO) Solution – by Dr. Nathan Bryan & Janet Zand

…and, with a focus on beets (roots and leaves):

Beet The Odds – by Dr. Nathan Bryan & Carolyn Pierini

Enjoy!