Thread: Beets!
View Single Post
Old 06-01-21, 04:51 PM
  #5  
Carbonfiberboy 
just another gosling
 
Carbonfiberboy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Everett, WA
Posts: 19,500

Bikes: CoMo Speedster 2003, Trek 5200, CAAD 9, Fred 2004

Mentioned: 115 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 3872 Post(s)
Liked 1,920 Times in 1,369 Posts
Beets, beetroot juice, inorganic nitrate, all about the same thing, different ways of consuming it. Many studies have been done looking for affects on athletic performance. They show mixed results. Some show a 2.5-4% improvement in endurance particularly. Others don't show any such thing. There are confounders aplenty. The biggest confounder is whether or not the subjects used mouthwash or a toothpaste which might damage or kill mouth bacteria. Another confounder is whether or not the subjects consumed nitrate rich vegetables in their normal diet. There are others.
https://www.pnas.org/content/109/33/13144

You have to eat a lot of beets or drink a lot of beetroot juice. The affect is dose-dependent. You're looking for a daily dosage of about 1.5g of nitrate. It's a lot cheaper to use sodium nitrate, 2g a day. Whether or not you get an athletic boost from it, it's good for your health.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full...AHA.110.153536
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4008816/
__________________
Results matter
Carbonfiberboy is offline