Beetroot Supplements: Nitrate, Exercise and Label Amounts

What is beetroot?

Beetroot is the edible root of Beta vulgaris, also called red beet or table beet. It can be eaten as a vegetable, pressed into juice, concentrated into a small shot or dried into powder. The useful number for a sports supplement is milligrams of dietary nitrate per serving. Five grams of beet powder tells you how much plant material is in the scoop, but leaves its nitrate content unknown.

Athletes take beetroot juice for endurance, and some people use it for blood pressure. Beetroot’s red pigments, called betalains, are a separate research question. A product can concentrate those pigments while supplying little or no nitrate.

How people used beets before sports supplements

Writing about Delphi, Pliny describes a silver representation of a beet in the temple of Apollo. ^[1]

Ancient accounts often describe beet leaves as vegetables. The root was eaten too. In the Roman cookery collection attributed to Apicius, a recipe directs the cook to clean the roots of black beets and simmer them with mead, salt and oil. Historical illustrations also help explain why an ancient beet might have looked unfamiliar. Earlier depictions show relatively narrow roots, while the swollen table beet became common in much later illustrations. Apicius, Book III, recipe 70^[2] · Historical study of beet cultivation and images^[3]

Later herbalists distinguished varieties and uses. The 1850 edition of Culpeper’s Complete Herbal attributes a bowel-loosening effect to white beet and describes quite different uses for red beet. That is a record of historical practice. The exercise and blood-pressure trials below used measured juice preparations and tested outcomes such as cycling time or blood pressure over a full day. ^[4]

What does nitrate do in your body?

Some nitrate from a meal enters the blood and returns to the mouth in saliva. Bacteria on the tongue convert part of it into nitrite. After swallowing, nitrite can lead to production of nitric oxide, which helps the muscle in blood-vessel walls relax. This gives researchers a reason to test changes in blood pressure and the oxygen cost of a fixed exercise workload. A lower oxygen cost means the same task uses less oxygen. An increase in the maximum amount of oxygen a person can use is a different result.

Why do people take beetroot?

Common dosage and timing

The Australian Institute of Sport^[6] describes a common sports protocol of 6–8 millimoles (mmol) of nitrate about two to three hours before exercise. One mmol of nitrate weighs about 62 mg, so that range corresponds to 372–496 mg of nitrate. Some protocols use repeated daily servings. These are studied sports exposures, not daily nutritional requirements.

A sports expert consensus^[7] considered a wider single-dose range of 8–16 mmol, or about 496–992 mg, typically two to four hours before the event. Individual studies help explain why the upper end is difficult to interpret. In one dose comparison, 70 mL of the test juice supplied 4.2 mmol. Doubling the amount to 8.4 mmol increased time before task failure by about 14% versus placebo. At 16.8 mmol the increase was about 12%. More nitrate did not produce a further endurance gain in that test. Another 70 mL product can have a different nitrate content. ^[8]

What should the label disclose?

A laboratory comparison found roughly a 50-fold spread in nitrate content among commercial beet products. Researchers tested 45 lots of 24 products, and only five products consistently supplied at least 5 mmol per serving. Processing does not tell you what happened to an individual powder. Its measured content does. Competitive athletes may also need batch-specific sport testing for prohibited substances, which is a separate check from nitrate content. Commercial product analysis^[9] · Manufacturer’s shot specification^[10] · USDA fiber data^[11]

Drawbacks and side effects

Sildenafil requires a separate distinction. Its prescribing information warns against combining it with organic nitrate medicines, which can cause a dangerous fall in pressure. Beet juice supplies inorganic dietary nitrate. The prescription warning does not supply a tested safety threshold for a concentrated shot taken with sildenafil. Ask the prescriber about that particular combination. ^[16]

What does the science show?

Blood pressure fell in one hypertension trial, with different results in diabetes

An early experiment in healthy volunteers found a reduction in blood pressure around three hours after 500 mL of beetroot juice, when blood nitrite had risen. A more clinically relevant trial enrolled 68 adults with hypertension, half already taking medication and half untreated. Sixty-four completed four weeks on 250 mL per day of juice containing about 6.4 mmol nitrate or on nitrate-depleted juice. In the nitrate group, average blood pressure measured by a 24-hour monitor fell from its starting level by 7.7 mmHg systolic and 5.2 mmHg diastolic. The placebo group showed no comparable fall. The first number is the pressure during a heartbeat and the second is the pressure between beats. Tests of blood-vessel function and arterial stiffness also favored the nitrate-rich juice. The British Heart Foundation funded the trial, and one author disclosed a directorship at Heartbeet Ltd. Acute study^[17] · Kapil hypertension trial^[15]

In a separate crossover trial, 27 people with type 2 diabetes received 250 mL per day of juice containing 7.5 mmol nitrate and a nitrate-depleted juice for two weeks each. Their average 24-hour systolic readings were about 135 mmHg under both conditions. Tests of how blood vessels responded and how effectively insulin acted also showed no clear advantage. The trials differed in population and duration, so neither predicts a particular person’s response. They measured pressure and vessel function over weeks. Whether juice prevents strokes or heart attacks over years is a different question. ^[18]

A chlorhexidine rinse reduced nitrite, and a separate study compared two kinds of gum

In a crossover study of seven healthy volunteers, a chlorhexidine mouthwash sharply reduced the rise in blood nitrite after a dose of sodium nitrate. That finding concerns a particular antibacterial rinse and a chemical measurement. Ordinary chewing gum varies in composition. In another experiment, 14 volunteers took the same beetroot shot on two visits and chewed either acidic sugar-containing gum or sugar-free gum. Blood nitrite rose more with the acidic sugared gum, and systolic pressure was slightly lower. Both conditions included gum, and the researchers did not test exercise performance. If your dentist has prescribed a rinse, discuss its timing with them before changing it. Chlorhexidine experiment^[19] · Chewing-gum crossover study^[20]

Walking with peripheral arterial disease

One small study tested whether people with peripheral arterial disease could walk longer before their legs began to hurt. Eight participants drank beetroot juice and a control drink on separate visits. After the juice they walked about 215 seconds before calf pain, versus 183 seconds after the control drink. They also walked longer before stopping. Participants knew which drink they had taken, which could influence when they reported pain. The experiment measured walking on those two visits. ^[21]

A fixed-intensity test lasted longer after nitrate-rich juice

In a study of 12 recreationally active men, researchers timed how long a single leg could keep working at a fixed intensity. After five days of nitrate-rich juice, average time to exhaustion was about 12 minutes 41 seconds, compared with 9 minutes 3 seconds after nitrate-depleted juice. That is a substantial difference on this particular task. It does not translate directly into a percentage improvement in a race where a runner or cyclist chooses the pace. ^[22]

Cycling time trials improved in club riders, but not every athlete group

A separate crossover trial used a race clock. Nine competitive club-level male cyclists took about 6.2 mmol nitrate in juice or a nitrate-depleted version around 2½ hours before riding. They finished 4 km about 2.8% faster and 16.1 km about 2.7% faster with the nitrate-rich juice. The longer ride took 26.9 rather than 27.7 minutes on average. They produced more power at similar measured oxygen uptake. ^[23]

In eight elite male 1,500-meter runners, neither a single dose nor eight days of a high-nitrate preparation improved the group’s race time. Recreationally active women taking hormonal contraceptives also showed no clear cycling time-trial or oxygen-cost benefit in another placebo comparison. Women were underrepresented in the larger research pool, which limits predictions by sex. Overall, the measured effect across exercise studies was small, and the most highly trained participants showed less consistent benefit. Elite runner trial^[24] · Women’s cycling study^[25] · Exercise meta-analysis^[26]

Early glucose changes have not translated into dependable diabetes control

In a crossover experiment, 16 healthy people drank 225 mL of beetroot juice or a drink matched for major nutrients. The juice produced a lower glucose response in the first 30 minutes and a lower insulin response in the first hour. The researchers measured several compounds in the juice, including the beet pigment derivative neobetanin. Participants drank the complete juice, so the contribution of any one pigment remains uncertain. ^[27]

The two-week diabetes trial found no improvement in insulin sensitivity. In another diabetes trial, 46 people were assigned to their usual care with or without 24 mL of concentrated juice each day. Of those, 38 finished 12 weeks. After accounting for the starting values, the groups showed no clear difference in fasting glucose, HbA1c (average blood sugar over several months), insulin or blood pressure. People choosing beetroot as a vegetable get fiber, but the human trials give little support for using a juice supplement to control diabetes. ^[28]

A pigment concentrate shortened a timed run, while post-race juice did little for soreness

A trial in 22 triathletes tested a nitrate-free, betalain-rich concentrate. After six days of supplementation and a further dose before exercise, the participants completed a 10 km run after cycling in an average of 49.5 minutes on the concentrate and 50.8 minutes on placebo. The next day’s shorter run also favored the concentrate. This was a specific extract with a different composition from a nitrate sports shot. ^[29]

A study of 34 experienced marathon runners gave whole beetroot juice or a calorie-matched placebo for three days after their race. It found no clear advantage for soreness, muscle recovery or inflammatory markers including C-reactive protein and interleukin-6. The runners in the first trial took a pigment concentrate before a timed effort. The marathoners in the second drank juice afterward to see whether they recovered more comfortably. ^[30]

The bottom line

If you want to try beetroot for exercise, look for milligrams of nitrate per full serving. A 70 mL shot declaring 400 mg nitrate is within the range commonly used before exercise; a 5 g beet-powder scoop with no nitrate figure may provide much less or much more. Try the product during training to check how you respond and whether your stomach tolerates it. The studies found benefits for some cycling tests, but no clear improvement for every athlete group.

If you are considering a supplement for blood pressure, the four-week trial in people with hypertension is encouraging, but a smaller trial in people with type 2 diabetes found no blood-pressure benefit. If you already take blood-pressure medicine, bring your readings and the product's nitrate amount to your prescriber before using concentrated servings regularly. For blood-sugar control, the diabetes trials offer little reason to buy beetroot juice. Whole beets remain a food choice even if you have no reason to buy a supplement.

Source notes

• NIH exercise supplements fact sheet^[5] and Australian Institute of Sport nitrate guide^[12]
• Kapil et al., four-week hypertension trial^[15] and Gilchrist et al., crossover trial in diabetes^[18]
• Senefeld et al., exercise meta-analysis^[26] and sports expert consensus^[7]
• ^[14]

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