Beetroot Juice Curbs BP in Hypertensive Patients

By Reuters Staff

NEW YORK - Dietary nitrate from beetroot juice lowers blood pressure (BP) in patients with hypertension, according to UK researchers.

Single-dose administration of dietary inorganic nitrate is known to cause an acute reduction of BP in normotensive healthy volunteers, Dr. Amrita Ahluwalia of Queen Mary University of London and colleagues note in Hypertension, online November 24.

To examine whether this might also be of value in hypertensive patients, the team randomized 68 patients aged 18 to 85 years to receive daily nitrate dietary supplementation with 250 mL of beetroot juice or placebo in the form of nitrate-depleted beetroot juice. Thirty-four had been treated for hypertension and the remainder were drug-naive.

The primary end-point of the four-week study was change in clinic, ambulatory and home BP with active treatment compared with placebo.

Daily supplementation with dietary nitrate led to a reduction in clinic systolic/diastolic BP of 7.7/2.4 mm Hg. Corresponding reductions for 24-hour ambulatory BP were 7.7/5.2 mm Hg and for home BP, they were 8.1/3.8 mm Hg.

There was no evidence of tachyphylaxis and endothelial function improved by about 20% and arterial stiffness was reduced by a significant 0.59 m/s in the active treatment group. There were no changes after placebo.

"Our previous studies have suggested that 4 mmol is a threshold dose for BP lowering healthy volunteers, although it is not clear from our data whether this is also true for hypertensives or what dose of dietary nitrate might provide maximal BP lowering," the researchers say.

They also point out that because of factors such as batch-to-batch variation, "we cannot be certain that prolonged intake of beetroot juice is reliably acceptable as a therapeutic source of dietary nitrate."

Nevertheless, they conclude, "These findings suggest a role for dietary nitrate as an affordable, readily-available, adjunctive treatment in the management of patients with hypertension."

Dr. Ahluwalia did not respond to requests for comments.

SOURCE: https://bit.ly/1Bt0va6

Hypertension 2014.

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