Beet juice beats altitude sickness
Next time you go on a mountain hike, add beet juice in your pack. A new study shows that beet juice fights altitude sickness caused by low air pressures. The nitrate in beet juice relaxes the blood vessels and lets them deliver oxygen to the body.
A team of Norwegian and Swedish researchers decided to see how nitrate-rich beet juice might affect acclimatization on a 39-day expedition to Kathmandu and at 3700 metres in the Rolwaling Valley, Nepal.
Both men and women were studied with ultrasound to check their blood vessel function, before and during the high altitude expedition. As expected, high altitude made blood vessels contract.
To test if beet juice could make the blood vessels relax again, the test subjects were investigated after drinking two types of beet juice with a 24-hour break between tests.
One of the juices contained high amounts of nitrate while the other type had no nitrate in it (placebo). Neither the study participants nor the researchers knew what type of beet juice each person drank before blood vessel function was measured, and the juices (nitrate-rich versus placebo) were given in a random order.
The study showed that beet juice with high amounts of nitrate made the blood vessels relax and return to normal function, while beet juice with no nitrate (the placebo) did not have any effect.
“Next time you plan a trip at high altitude, maybe it is worth carrying a bottle of beet juice in your backpack,” said the study’s corresponding author, Svein Erik Gaustad, from NTNU’s CERG. “It may be the extra boost your body needs to deliver enough oxygen to your tired muscles and keep you healthy when you are climbing a high mountain.”
The researchers behind the study are from the K.G. Jebsen Center for Exercise in Medicine – Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and the Environmental Physiology Group at Mid-Sweden University in Östersund, Sweden.
