Beet juice, nitrates, slow breathing music, and research results on hypertension

April 11, 3:09 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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The problem with food and juice research is that so many studies use only healthy volunteers. How would juicing or these studies help those with hypertension that are highly resistant to treatment whether with drugs or on raw vegetable diets?

Studies also should be done with vegetable juices on those with uncontrolled blood pressure and on older persons that want to use only natural foods and supplements or breathing exercises. A slow breathing machine such as Resperate ™  or breathing to slow music  on MP3 files or CDs such as the Breatheasy™ recordings also are helpful.

Investigate by asking how people in your individual situation have been helped. See which studies have been done with volunteers of advanced age or specific blood pressure measurements. How have they been helped? Read The High Blood Pressure Hoax by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. Also see a review at the Simply Natural Foods site.

Research results obtained by use of the breathing machines, such as Resperate ™ or  the slow breathing with music audio files and CDs, such as Breatheasy™ . Investigate how lifestyle changes, vegetable juices, the fish and vegetable diets, or various magnesium powder and multiple minerals research studies have worked with people in similar situations to your own.

Is there some whole food or juice that will turn off the gene variations causing the hypertension, assuming it’s not caused by hormones being released from an adrenal or other tumor as in Cushing disease? If you have dandruff, beet juice mixed with vinegar and ginger also helps remove it.

The newest candidate for natural blood pressure control is drinking two cups a day of beet juice. However, that much beet juice is potent. Will your stomach be able to take it? Otherwise mix it with carrot and celery juice.

A study in the journal Hypertension (online Feb. 4, 2008) showed that two cups (500 ml) of beet alone juice lowered blood pressure by approximately 10 points. That is better than many prescription drugs. The effect lasts up to 24 hours. Beet juice drinkers were compared with water drinkers in the study. For the beet juice drinkers, blood pressure dropped one hour after the volunteers drank the beet juice. It reached its lowest point 2.5 to 3 hours after ingestion and continued to have an effect for up to 24 hours.

It has been reported that more than 25 per cent of the world’s adult populations are hypertensive. And it has been estimated that this figure will increase to 29 per cent by 2025, according to the Feb 2008 Hypertension study  using beet juice with healthy volunteers.

Are your kidneys healthy enough to consume beets and other nitrate-rich vegetables, such as spinach? Is there a simpler way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system as scientists work to pinpoint how aging bodies with specific genetic variations react biochemically to foods, including juices? Have news reports or medical journal articles announced a variety of solutions to the genetic causes of hypertension yet?

See the Science Blog article to find out more about the biochemical error in human kidney cells that raise the risk of hypertension over a lifetime. Science should be looking for what will correct the error, and research is underway in Japan. 

Read the scientific journal paper titled, “Acute blood pressure lowering, vasoprotective and anti-platelet properties of dietary nitrate via bioconversion to nitrite.” It's published online in the February 2008 edition of Hypertension.

In plain language, if your blood vessels have trouble expanding or contracting to handle changes in blood flow, you might need some nitric oxide in your blood stream from vegetable juices, vegetables, and fruit. And if you have thick blood that clots too easily, beet juice may have anti-clotting, called anti-platelet properties.

Beets are one vegetable among many such as lettuce, spinach, and most green, leafy vegetables high in nitrates. Dietary nitrates help to increase the amount of nitric oxide in the body. Nitric oxide (NO) helps blood vessels relax, lowering blood pressure. Nitric oxide (NO) has anti-inflammatory activity as well inhibits blood clot formation somewhat.

What happens when you drink beet juice is that the bacteria on your tongue changes the nitrates in the beet juice into nitrite. In your stomach, nitrite turns into nitric oxide. Then it gets into your bloodstream as nitrites.

Your blood pressure goes down when the nitrites in your bloodstream are highest. But no single food can be singled out over the long term.

You need a diet high in raw vegetables and some fruits as well—more vegetables than fruits on a daily basis. Healthy vegetables also include red cabbage, radishes, green, leafy vegetables, and whole grains.

Other vegetables and fruits that help blood pressure include pomegranate and grape juice, magnesium supplements and breathing exercises. Four stalks of celery is an old Japanese wise food tradition for lowering blood pressure. Eating sliced beets with lemon juice is an old Slavic tradition.

What helps most people's general health (unless an individual is allergic to certain vegetables such as corn, nuts, or wheat) is a diet high in raw vegetables and vegetable juices that are high in nitrates. You’ll have to juice the peeled beets yourself or buy it online.

Sure, drinking two cups of beet juice a day may protect against endothelial dysfunction defined as when blood vessels have trouble expanding or contracting to handle changes in blood flow. Beets as well as green, leafy vegetables also have anti-platelet properties which help to prevent thick blood from clotting too easily.

So find out whether you have thick or thin blood first. Are your kidneys healthy enough to consume vegetables and fruits? Find beet juice (Biotta Organic Beat Juice) online at True Foods Market or at see the beet juice on sale best price site.