Beets Boost Brain Health

Beets are high in nitrates, which are converted by the digestive process into nitrite, a compound that helps to open up the blood vessels in the body, increasing blood flow and oxygen specifically to places that are lacking oxygen. Daniel Kim-Shapiro, from Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA), and colleagues have found that that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to the brain.  The team enrolled 14 adults, ages 7- and older, for a four-day long study.  On the first day, subjects reported to the lab after a 10-hour fast, completed a health status report, and consumed either a high- or low-nitrate breakfast. The high-nitrate breakfast included 16 ounces of beet juice. They were sent home with lunch, dinner and snacks conforming to their assigned diets. The next day, following another 10-hour fast, the subjects returned to the lab, where they ate their assigned breakfasts. One hour after breakfast, an MRI recorded the blood flow in each subject’s brain. Blood tests before and after breakfast confirmed nitrite levels in the body. For the third and fourth days of the study, the researchers switched the diets and repeated the process for each subject. The MRIs showed that after eating a high-nitrate diet, the older adults had increased blood flow to the white matter of the frontal lobes – the areas of the brain commonly associated with degeneration that leads to dementia and other cognitive conditions.  The researchers conclude that: “These results suggest that dietary nitrate may be useful in improving regional brain perfusion in older adults in critical brain areas known to be involved in executive functioning.”