Have you ever seen a prescription advertised on
television? If yes, then you know that the end of the advertisement brings a
list of possible side effects. In some cases the side effects can be worse than
the actually disease that the prescription is meant for. How would you like to
be able to treat a disease without any adverse side effects? Well there is good
news for people suffering from Heart Failure with preserved ejection fraction
(HFpEF). In a recent study done by the American College of Cardiology
Foundation along with the American Heart Association it was found that Beetroot
Juice can improve sub-maximal aerobic endurance leading to a treatment for its
worse symptom.
Heart
Failure with preserved ejection fraction can be understood as the beginning
symptoms of heart failure. Some symptoms include: increased blood pressure, contraction of
arteries and veins and exercise intolerance. Exercise intolerance is the
primary clinical feature of HFpEF. Exercise intolerance is classified as the
inability to sustain 75% of one’s maximum heart rate for 10 minutes. Exercise
intolerance is the major component of the reduction of quality of life among
these patients. HFpEF is commonly found
in the elderly and as of right now the only clinical therapy for HFpEF is
endurance exercise. Many people have looked at this disease and wondered why
not just treat it with a medication? Well as of right now there are no
medications that are able to target the specific cardiac muscles involved.
However,
studies have shown that inorganic nitrate (NO3-) has the ability to
target areas of low oxygen and low pH in the blood and body. It just so happens
that during endurance exercise the skeletal muscles involved become
deoxygenated; therefore the NO3- targets the skeletal muscle. NO3-
is abundant in beetroot juice and has been shown to improve exercise
performance and oxygen consumption of younger healthy individuals as well as
the elderly suffering from peripheral arterial disease. It has also been shown
that beetroot juice can increase the time to exhaustion (the amount of time a
person can hold there max heart rate during a workout) and reduce oxygen
consumption (VO2) during sub-maximal exercise. NO3- works
as a vasodilator (increasing the size or arteries and veins) which can increase
the rate of oxygen flow throughout the body and also decrease blood pressure.
During
the American College of Cardiology Foundation and American Heart Association
study, 20 individuals with exercise intolerance were used for the 3 week long
study. During these 3 weeks the individuals were given a placebo for a week,
one bottle beetroot juice on the first day then a placebo for the rest of the
week and lastly, one bottle of beetroot juice a day for a week. The placebo
given for a week looked and tasted the same as the normal beetroot juice, this
placebo was also given during the week the individuals only drank one bottle of
beetroot juice. Each individual was told to come to the clinic every day during
the three week period. During their visits the individuals would do a
submaximal exercise for 10 minutes getting their blood oxygen levels checked
every 2 minutes and also blood would be taken to check to NO3- level.
At
the conclusion of this study it was found that beetroot juice was able to
reduce blood pressure but, only when the individuals drank the juice every day.
One strange finding was that the NO3- levels during the single dose
week were only 10-15 µL less than the daily dose of beetroot juice. Lastly, the daily dose of beetroot juice was
shown to improve aerobic endurance for patients suffering from HFpEF. The
reasoning behind this is most likely due to NO3-‘s ability increase
blood flow. The findings of this study could possibly lead to a cure for
exercise intolerance which would then lead to the increase of quality of life
among individuals that suffer from HFpEF.
Work Cited
Eggebeen
J. (2016). One Week of Daily Dosing With Beetroot Juice Improves Submaximal
Endurance and Blood Pressure in Older Patients With Heart Failure and Preserved
Ejection Fraction. Science Direct,
2(3), 1-9. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
Images by Christopher Mosconi
Very educational and informative article on beetroot juice improving submaximal endurance and blood pressure in older patients with heart failure and preserved ejection fraction. I was very surprised that it took only one week to see the results of daily drinking beetroot juice. For any prescription there are side effects, but are there any side effects of drinking beetroot juice? I am curious as to what led you to to choose this article. Do you know anyone that has improved their blood pressure and endurance by daily drinking beetroot juice?
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of beet root juice and its benefit before reading this blog. I wonder if one can get the same effects from eating plain beets. I'm very intrigued by this and am thinking of doing a little experiment of my own and seeing how the consumption of beet root juice will affect my performance during my workouts. I am against taking things such as pre-workouts because I do not know enough about them and this seems like a great alternative to improve my cardiovascular health and physical performance.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, the only time I have ever heard of beets is through the show the Office. Clearly some beet farmers a bit crazy! Regardless of corny jokes, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Hypertension is a major issue in today's medical field. And most of these problems stem from our diets! We need to focus on changing our diets before immediately turning to medicine which may have harmful side effects! Maybe, I should be taking this before a long run!
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