The best cure for hypertension is sausage!
Drinking 500 ml of beet juice a day significantly reduces blood pressure, which is of great importance for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Scientists of the William Harvey Research Institute and the London Medical School, working under the guidance of Professor Amrita Ahluwalia, have found that daily consumption of nitrates, which are part of beet juice, as well as green leafy vegetables, contributes to a persistent decrease in blood pressure. Previously, the preventive effect of a diet rich in vegetables was associated with a high content of antioxidant vitamins.
The authors report that the blood pressure of healthy participants in the experiment began to decrease within the first hour after drinking beet juice, and the maximum effect was observed after 3-4 hours. A certain level of reduction persisted for 24 hours after taking the juice. The mechanism underlying this effect is the chemical transformation of the nitrate contained in beet juice into nitrite.
The conversion of nitrate into nitrite occurs with the help of bacteria contained in the oral cavity. After that, the saliva is swallowed and the nitrite contained in it under the action of the acidic environment of the stomach is partially converted into nitric oxide, which has a vasodilating effect, and partially enters the bloodstream unchanged. During the experiment, the maximum decrease in blood pressure in the participants coincided with the peak increase in the level of nitrite in the blood. This effect was not observed in the second group of participants who refrained from swallowing saliva during and for three hours after taking the juice.
More than a quarter of adults worldwide are diagnosed with hypertension, and, according to experts, by 2025 this figure will increase to 29%. In addition, high blood pressure is the cause of more than 50% of cases of coronary heart disease and approximately 75% of strokes. Demonstrating the role of nitrates in the cardioprotective effect of a vegetable-rich diet, the authors emphasize the potential of a natural inexpensive approach to the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, which are in the first place among the causes of mortality worldwide.
If you think about it, the value of this study raises serious doubts – just from the standpoint of common sense.
It is curious that the authors clearly do not know many well-known truths. For example, the fact that anthocyanin pigments irritate the intestinal mucosa, which is why beetroot is an excellent laxative. From half a liter of beet juice, the patient is almost guaranteed an unexpected side effect, but is such violence against the body useful with daily intake? Nitrates are found in any vegetables: all plants convert nitrogen into them from any sources, from "environmentally friendly" manure or atmospheric nitrogen transformed into a digestible form by nodule bacteria, to urea (carbamide) and nitrophosca. With the maximum permissible concentration of nitrates from 0.06 g per kilogram of raw weight (in apples) to 1.4 (in beets) and 2.0 g/ kg (in leafy greens), vegetables usually contain 1.5-6 times more nitrates – otherwise their yield will be too low. But why transfer so many beets? Wouldn't it be easier to launch the production of tablets containing a gram of cheap fertilizer like ammonium nitrate? Only it is unlikely that the supervisory authorities will allow them: nitrates, as described above, will turn into nitrites, and carcinogenic nitrosamines are formed from them under the action of bile acids in the intestine. Therefore, nutritionists recommend fighting nitrates in vegetables, but agricultural technicians and peasants have their own interests.
And it would also be nice to check the effect on blood pressure of sausages, sausages and other conditionally-food products, in which nitrites are added to preserve the pink color. In accordance with the current Sanitary Regulations on the use of food additives No. 1923-78, the content of nitrites in the finished meat product should not exceed 30-50 mg/ kg (less than in apples), but how many of them are there in fact? Maybe there are also several MPCs?
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of ScienceDaily.
07.02.2008