Beetroot & Heart Health
Beetroot & Benefits
Beetroot is the taproot portion of a beet plant. There are number of types of beetroots varying in colour like yellow, white, pink or dark purple. Both taproot and leaves known as beet greens of the beetroot are edible. It is also used in food colouring, as a medicinal plant and as a sugar substitute.
Beetroot is packed with many essential nutrients such as Folate (vitamin B9), manganese, potassium, iron and Vitamin C, Also beetroot is a good source of fibre and low in Calories.
Other than Essential Nutrients, It consists of some Plant Compounds such as Betanin, Vulgaxanthin and inorganic nitrate.
Betanin is the most common strong red coloured pigment present in beetroots, whereas Vulgaxanthin is the yellow orange pigment found in dark yellow beetroots.
Inorganic Nitrate is found in generous amount in beetroots and beetroot juice. The inorganic nitrate turns into nitric oxide within the body and has many health benefits.
So beetroots either eaten raw or juice both has numerous health benefits such as it has anti-inflammatory properties, improves digestive health, helps in weight loss , supports brain health, improves blood flow, prevents anaemia, maintain blood pressure, Anti-cancer properties. Also! Being nutrient rich and presence of dietary Nitrates it enhances the exercise performance by improving use of Oxygen and time to exhaustion.
Beetroot & Heart Health
Cardiovascular problems now a days affected due to lack of balanced diet and lifestyle, following nutrient-deficient diets for weight loss for long, lack of exercise and stress management are some major reasons that incorporate heart diseases.
Beetroot juice contains phytochemical plant compounds known as nitrates, which when consumed it interacts with saliva and bacteria present in the mouth convert them into nitrites, these nitrites are then converted into nitric oxide on reaching the gastrointestinal tract or re-enter to the circulation as nitrite. During this process within human body interacting with these nutrients , it creates blood –pressure reducing effect for a sort of time , can be observed after 3 to 4 hours later effectively after consuming beetroot juice.
There are so many researches going on beetroot and Researchers came out with so many observations such as ‘’drinking just 500ml of beetroot juice a day can effectively reduce the blood pressure’’ finding by London School of Medicines.
A study also says that Dietary Nitrate-, which is a plant compound present in beetroot, dilates the blood vessels to decrease the blood pressure and maintain the blood flow. It may reduce the overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system that occurs with heart disease. Thus the research and studies specifically done on beetroot juice, a source of dietary nitrate, to find out its function in treatment of cardiovascular disease in future. The study was also published in various associations such as American Journal of physiology- Heart and circulatory physiology that is the first to study the effects of dietary nitrate present in beetroot supplementation on the sympathetic nerve activity.
Therefore, this magic taproot can change the status of your health effectively providing optimum nutrition to the body. Although! It is not possible to integrate a complete balanced diet to a single element. We need to add optimum amount of fruits, vegetables & cereals in our diet, which have benefits that can control cardiovascular diseases.
