Beetroot juice lowers blood pressure in older people by changing oral microbiome
35 comments
·July 27, 2025ulf-77723
dinfinity
For people who don't like drinking beetroot juice, you can also regularly (French) kiss with people with healthy oral microbiomes [0][1]. Best to really get in there.
[0] https://www.adelaide.edu.au/newsroom/news/list/2024/02/20/mo...
[1] https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186...
fhars
How would capsules affect the mouth biome, though?
bognition
Back in school I was often told the lead pipes in Roman aqueducts likely played a key role in the fall of Roman. We know lead is a poison with negative long term effects on cognition.
The aqueducts were also responsible for Romes ability to proliferate and grow. Lead was both a blessing and a curse.
I wonder what future generations will say about our highly enriched and processed diets. Calories have never been cheaper and food is ubiquitous. However I believe our food is playing a huge role in our degraded health.
It’s not surprising that most studies looking at the consumption of unprocessed food, fresh fruit and vegetables show benefits to our health.
The challenge is how do we get this food in the hands of those who need it cheaply and without sacrificing the nutritional (and microbial) content.
papercrane
The lead pipes theory is mostly just pop-science. Romans were likely getting more lead exposure from using lead cooking vessels and utensils.
didgeoridoo
Plus literally “flavoring” their wine on purpose with lead acetate.
MengerSponge
And that was the first and last time that no-calorie sweeteners had deleterious population-level effects
edwardbernays
So is the idea that widespread lead exposure led to the decline of the Roman empire largely pop science? Are you saying that's not accurate, or that the source of the lead exposure is miscounted?
Quarrel
Yes, that is the modern understanding. Widespread lead exposure had very little / nothing to do with the decline the Roman Empire.
giantg2
"Back in school I was often told the lead pipes in Roman aqueducts likely played a key role in the fall of Roman. We know lead is a poison with negative long term effects on cognition."
I highly doubt there was much effect from the pipes. They would quickly be sealed in mineral scale. Cups or utensils - maybe, but would be more about specific important people using them rather than being widespread.
MengerSponge
Wine (and grape juice) was cooked in lead vessels, which generates Lead(II) Acetate aka Sugar of Lead. They lead poisoned themselves coming and going.
1970-01-01
Comfortable and uninterrupted sleeping, eating mostly plants, and getting your heart rate up and muscles moving for half an hour per day.
Anything else is going from 90% healthy to 99%.
dinfinity
I'd like to add: Stretching or some other kind of flexibility improving activities. Muscles moving for half an hour a day doesn't (necessarily) do anything for that (may even make it worse if you're doing heavy stuff).
The effects on quality of life of a bit of flexibility are huge. Back pain, knee pain, shoulder pain, "RSI", and so many other ails are often just pretty much permanently cramped muscles negatively affecting ligaments and nerves.
djtango
I can't remember where (maybe here) that you shouldn't use mouthwash after working out because of the effects on your oral microbiome. That fact shocked me just like this article does because it was unintuitive that your oral microbiome could have such an impact on your physiology.
The effect may actually be a similar one because nitrates do sound familiar...
christophilus
You shouldn’t use mouthwash at all ever. It’s a nuke to the microbes in your mouth. There was a long, rambling discussion with a functional dentist on the Primal Podcast[0] that goes into this.
giantg2
There are situations where mouthwashes are beneficial, such as with injuries... Just not the stuff you buy at the store. The best mouthwash for those situations is just warm salty water.
DuzAwe
Alcohol or just fluoride?
I have an aversion to the alcohol washes after reading years ago that the change to your mouth biome may lead to the issues that they are meant to stop.
hotpotat
If you have trouble in bed, ask yourself if you use Listerine. It kills your mouth’s microbiome and lowers your Nitric Oxide production [0].
riffraff
I don't use Listerine but I didn't get this: trouble in bed of what kind? I couldn't get it from the linked article.
I never knew high blood pressure correlates with bad sleep or bad sex (if anything, meds for high blood pressure come with negative effects on that).
hotpotat
The physical performance kind. Conversely beet root, L-Citruline, and supplemental NO are commonly used for ED. That’s why medications like tadalafil and sildenafil work. NO relaxes your blood vessels and increases blood flow generally.
giantg2
And get sun exposure since your body will synthesize it.
nothrowaways
Cooked or raw?
mariusor
I think this is also one of the latest "marginal gains" advantages the cycling pro peloton is making use of. After races you can see them all chug a 150-200ml bottle of beetroot juice as a recovery drink while making the afferent faces. :D
cowmoo728
beetroot juice was a few years ago and it's for a different purpose - nitric oxide to relax smooth muscle in the airways. the red recovery drink at recent events is tart cherry juice, which is thought to aid in muscle recovery.
healsdata
Isn't nitrates what makes processed meats so unhealthy? Does this mean the bacon that claims to be cured with celery juice is actually on to something?
mrob
The main preservative for processed meats, and the one that reacts with other compounds to form carcinogens, is nitrites not nitrates. Nitrates are sometimes used too, especially for meats that are cured for a long time, because some bacteria will reduce them to nitrites, making them effectively work as a sustained release form of nitrite. See:
cobbal
Celery is just a "natural" source of nitrates/nitrates. This makes it legal somehow to lie and claim "no added nitrates" on the label.
xyzzy_plugh
No, you're thinking of nitrites. Celery juice is very high in nitrates, which then get converted to nitrites, which they don't have to put on the label. It's entirely marketing. Nothing has materially changed.
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morninglight
Yes, this creates real confusion. Does this mean that you can eat a dozen hotdogs if you wash them down with a glass of beetroot juice?
If you are still not confused read this:
"Although prevalent in the diet, nitrates have been viewed negatively because they chemically form carcinogenic nitrosamines in acidic environments, e.g. stomach, purportedly leading to gastric cancer as well as neoplasia of the intestine, brain, pancreas, and contributing to Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. "
dotancohen
> Does this mean that you can eat a dozen hotdogs if you wash them down with a glass of beetroot juice?
nradov
That's interesting. I had always assumed that the effect was due to vasodilation but perhaps not.
giantg2
It is. The article is about how the beet juice affects the microbiome in a way that increases the conversion of nitrate to vasodialating nitric oxide.
null
MiscIdeaMaker99
I like beets. Do you?
Some time ago I read the book Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition by Anita Bean, which does also emphasize on not using antibacterial mouthwash since it removes the beneficial bacteria in the mouth which convert nitrate to nitrite.
I‘m drinking beetroot juice since 3 years now and asked myself if beetroot capsules might be an alternative.