A tasty red drink could help lower high blood pressure, according to studies. Also known as hypertension, high blood pressure is a potentially dangerous condition thought to affect around one in three adults in the UK.
If you have high blood pressure it means your heart has to work harder than usual to pump blood around your body.
Over time this puts extra pressure on the heart, blood vessels and other organs.
And if not treated it can have serious consequences, with high blood pressure linked to medical emergencies such as strokes and heart attacks.
Diet is known to be a major contributing factor for hypertension, with foods high in salt one of the major culprits.
This is because salt helps the body to hold on to water, driving the blood pressure up.
However, what we eat and drink can also have the opposite effect.
According to research a drink made from a root vegetable could slash your blood pressure reading, if consumed daily.
A team from Queen Mary University of London found that drinking beetroot juice daily had a significant effect on blood pressure.
In a study, published in Hypertension journal in 2015, they found that a 250ml glass of beetroot juice resulted in an average decrease in blood pressure of about 8/4 mmHg.
This meant that many of the study participants saw their blood pressure levels back into a safe range.
Researchers said this was significant as it is thought every 2mmHg increase in blood pressure increases the likelihood of death from heart disease by seven per cent and stroke by 10 percent.
The blood pressure-lowering benefits of beetroot were linked to the high levels of dietary nitrates found in the plant.
Other foods rich in nitrates include spinach, rhubarb, celery, lettuce and watercress.
In a university release, lead study author Professor Amrita Ahluwalia explained: “Diseases of the heart and blood vessels – which can cause heart attacks and strokes – remain the biggest cause of death worldwide.
“However, unlike some other serious illnesses, we are fortunate in that we can make certain lifestyle changes which dramatically improve our heart and blood vessel health.
“This research has proven that a daily inorganic nitrate dose can be as effective as medical intervention in reducing blood pressure and the best part is we can get it from beetroot and other leafy green vegetables.”
A more recently published paper came to a similar conclusion. A meta-analysis, published in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2022, looked at seven existing studies and concluded that nitrates found in beetroot juice reduces systolic blood pressure, but not diastolic blood pressure in patients with arterial hypertension.
This concluded that daily consumption of the juice over 60 days saw best results.
Beetroot juice from a supermarket costs around 75 pence per glass. You can buy a 1,000ml carton of the drink from Tesco for £3.
If you are concerned about your blood pressure you should speak to your GP.