What Does The Research Say About Beetroots?

Recently beets have been getting a lot of attention. Athletes are looking into it’s energy and recovery benefits, and those with cardiovascular concerns are seeing it’s potential for heart health. There are many aspects of a beetroot which research can hone in on. In addition, research can look at whole beets that are raw or cooked, or beetroot juice, or fermented beetroot juice or beet kvass. For now, let’s look more in depth at the question, “What does the research say about beetroots?”

Beetroot Research

Starting with beetroot plain and simple can give us a lot of “raw” information about its benefits. This study has done a thorough job of covering many aspects of beetroot benefits. Here is a general list of health areas that beets can help with, although it is not exhaustive by any means.

Within the article there is this great flow chart that shows all of the potentially bioactive compounds found in beetroots. The information in the flow chart below is found in the article, however I created this particular flow chart.

Flow chart describing the beetroot potential bioactive compounds — Information in the flow chart found here.

So, what does the research say about beetroots? What does all this mean? Well, there are two compounds found in beets that have been the center of a lot of research. Namely, nitrates and betalains.

Nitrate Research

The first time I remember hearing about nitrates was when a friend of mine specifically looked for nitrate free meat. I didn’t really know what to think because I had no idea what nitrates were, but my assumption was that they were bad for you. Let’s look a bit more closely at nitrates and what they do for the body.

Raw chunk of meat with nitrates and salt being added to it on a wooden cutting board with green herbs and meat in the background

Nitrates versus Nitrites

Based on an article from healthline, nitrates and nitrites are just variations of the same compound combination; nitrogen and oxygen. Nitrates have three oxygen atoms attached to a nitrogen atom, and nitrites have only two oxygen atoms. Because nitrates have a complete three oxygen atom model, they are relatively stable and don’t change easily. This is a good thing for our body. However, since the nitrites only have two oxygen atoms, they can change in a good way, or a bad way. Beneficially, they can become nitric oxide. Not so beneficially, they can become nitrosamines.

Nitrosamines

When discussing meat, unfortunately the leaning is towards nitrosamines. The added nitrites (or even nitrates more common nowadays), in combination with the high protein nature of meat, and also being cooked at such a high temperature, is the perfect combination for creating nitrosamines. This is another reason why vegetables don’t usually have this problem. While they are generally high in natural nitrates, they are significantly lower in protein and are not usually cooked at such a high heat as meat. Thus, the production of nitrosamines does not generally occur.

Vegetable Nitrate Research

Fresh garden vegetables in wooden container with yellow checkered towel inside, flowers behind and sunlight hitting the scene from behind

Vegetable nitrates are actually gaining a lot of popularity these days. This great article goes in depth on the current research available. In addition, it reevaluates the traditional ideas about how to lower sodium in ones diet for a healthy heart. Firstly, in the area of cardiovascular health and supplements, the meta-analysis and articles reviewed by the authors showed that antioxidant supplementation actually resulted in a worse outcome for those with heart health issues and lung cancer. When looking at what does help, green leafy vegetables are at the top of the list.

The DASH diet (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) has been shown to be as effective as medication in lowering one’s blood pressure. Originally, it was thought to be the effect of low sodium and animal proteins. Now however, the research is leaning towards the fact that all the recommended foods are high in natural nitrates. This study shows that vegetables have a 100% nitrate absorption rate.

Nitrates in the Body

How do nitrates work in the body? First, the nitrates are absorbed through the digestive system into the blood stream. Then they end up on the back of your tongue, where resident bacteria there convert it to nitrite and/or nitric oxide. As a side note, several articles mentioned that the use of anti-bacterial mouth wash after eating nitrate rich foods decreased the nitrate absorption due to the bacterial disruption on the tongue.

Second, the subsequent nitrite then re-enters the digestive track and can either continue through it, helping to produce mucus and providing immune boosting effects, or be re-absorbed into the blood stream once more to help other areas of the body. This is a very simplified version, as there are many pathways nitrate can take. However, the take home point is that nitrates from vegetables produce amazing benefits for the body, including vasodilation, a decrease in blood pressure, and cardiovascular health.

Betalain Research

Purple vegetables and fruit with betalain arranged on a purple background

Continuing on with our question about research on beetroots. The next compound that is so important in beets: betalains. Betalains are described as nitrogen-containing plant pigments which are water soluble. The red color is a result of betalain being broken down into betacyanin, and the yellow color is betalain being broken down into betaxanthin (see flow chart above). Betalains are considered non-toxic and are safe in high concentrations. According to this research article, the body is better able to absorb and use the natural form of betalains (coming from plants as opposed to synthetically produced), and there are less side effects observed.

Some of the amazing properties attributed to betalains are:

Antioxidant
Radical-scavenging
Anti‐inflammatory
Anticancer
Anti‐lipidaemic
Antimicrobial
- Against gram positive and negative bacteria, and biofilm-forming species
- Fungi -against yeasts Candida albicans
- Virus -including SARS-CoV-2 virus (inhibition especially seen with betacyanin)
- MRSA -beetroot especially showed signs of preventing infection from MRSA

It is important to note that the research looked at many plants with betalains in them, and some of the specific attributes of betalains were talked about in regards to a specific plant they studied. Overall, the researchers concluded that they couldn’t tell if betalain alone can be attributed to these health benefits, or if it is a synergistic effect of all the components in the plants.

Where to Now?

With all this amazing information deciphering the question, “What does the research say about beetroots?”, what’s next? My initial response is, eat more beets! I don’t think you can go wrong there. I’d be careful with high heat though, as that can damage the betalains. But for more information on what the research says about fermented beetroots and fermented beetroot juice, head on over to the article on fermented beetroot juice research!

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