Do beetroot supplements really boost your body as they claim?

Beetroots are often referred to as a superfood, high in fibre and part of a healthy diet. But do the benefits claimed by makers of beetroot powder stand up to scrutiny?

Dr Kirsten Brandt, Visiting Lecturer in Food and Human Nutrition at Newcastle University explains where these claims come from and how likely they are to be true.

Contents:

1. What is beetroot powder?
2. Why is beetroot considered a superfood?
3. Testing beetroot juice with placebos
4. What are the benefits of beetroot powder?
5. How best to consume nitrates
6. The research continues…

What is beetroot powder?

Beetroot powder, put simply, is beetroot which has been processed into powder by either air dehydration or freeze-drying, then ground into a fine and consistent powder.

The powder is then packaged and sold as a health supplement claiming to offer multiple physical benefits.

Beetroot powder can be produced from whole beetroot, which contains fibre, or beetroot juice, which has had the fibre removed. This is easy to test, by mixing the powder in a glass of water. After stirring, if the solution is clear, it’s made with powder from juice. But if it remains cloudy or has residues at the bottom of the glass, it is most likely made from whole beetroot, as the fibre within it isn’t water soluble.

Why is beetroot considered a superfood?

Aside from being high in fibre (if made from whole beetroot) and low in fat, research into the benefits of beetroot suggests that there are two naturally-occurring bioactive constituents that substantiate these claims.

These compounds stay mostly intact when beetroots are processed into powder or juice.

One is its betalains, which not only give beetroot its purple colour, but also offer heart-protecting qualities. The other is high levels of nitrates that when consumed, transform within the body into nitric oxide. This causes blood vessels to widen, facilitating the distribution of oxygen, glucose and other nutrients throughout the body. It also reduces inflammation.

While nitrate is beneficial to the body, its source is important. Some processed meat also contains nitrates, but during storage there is a risk of a reaction between nitrite and proteins, forming nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are regarded as probable carcinogens.

This formation of nitrosamines does not happen in vegetables, as they are low in protein and the reaction is inhibited by vitamin C. Fresh vegetables are also ‘live tissue’, in which this reaction can’t occur.

Testing beetroot juice with placebos

But why does much of this research relate only to beetroot and not to other vegetables with similar or even higher levels of nitrates, such as celery and lettuce?

A company specialising in the production of beetroot juice developed a way to remove the nitrate from it. This company then offered the nitrate-free juice to researchers, so that it could be used as a placebo during testing.

This placebo was then used in many trials to investigate the effects of beetroot juice’s nitrates.

One set of subjects was offered the nitrate-free placebo, and the other set was offered the full-strength nitrate-containing product. Test subjects in many of these trials showed a range of benefits in the subjects taking the full-strength nitrate product.

Here at Newcastle University, the team has also done research comparing the effects of placebos with lettuce. Lettuce can contain three to five times more nitrate than the same weight of beetroot, and probably therefore has stronger effects of nitrate.

In a 2022 research paper, we tried to develop a 'placebo lettuce' by growing the plants with low-nitrate fertiliser. We succeeded in reducing the nitrate content so much that we could measure the difference on blood pressure in healthy volunteers after consuming a single fifty gram portion of each type of lettuce. This study did have limitations, however, as the low-nitrate lettuce had increased content of phenolics, so the ’placebo lettuce’ wasn’t completely identical to the high-nitrate lettuce.

What are the benefits of beetroot powder?

In supplement form, beetroots might have the following moderate benefits:

Reduce blood pressure

By helping blood vessels relax, a review of eleven studies found that healthy people who consumed beetroot juice daily for anywhere from three to 60 days reduced their systolic blood pressure by five more points than the control group. However, it does not help people who suffer from hypertension, where their blood vessels have lost the ability to relax.

Make difficult workouts easier

Nitric oxide helps muscles maintain phosphocreatine, an energy reserve molecule that otherwise depletes during difficult workouts. Nine studies found that beetroot supplements might boost power and improve performance during high-intensity exercise, while improving the release and use of cellular calcium to help muscles contract faster.

Improve muscle recovery

Nitric oxide is known to reduce muscle inflammation and aid regeneration. Leading from this, a review of nine studies suggests that in as little as a few days of taking beetroot supplements, recovery from post-workout muscle soreness can be improved.

How best to consume nitrates

In terms of consuming nitrate, what is clear is that the process of converting nitrate to nitric oxide begins before you’ve even swallowed, due to a particular type of bacteria on your tongue which converts the nitrate into the intermediate compound nitrite. Capsules bypass this process and land further down in your digestive tract.

Furthermore, these bacteria are harmed by certain types of mouthwash containing the antibacterial chlorhexidine, which therefore eliminate all the possible health benefits that nitrate could provide. Since the conversion in the mouth does not happen, the nitrate is just excreted without ever becoming nitric oxide.

A potential added benefit of this conversion occurring in the mouth is that this nitrite counteracts acid formation from sugar and inflammation in the gums, and may therefore reduce the risk of oral disease and tooth loss. This effect is being studied further. If confirmed, it could benefit everyone, not specifically only athletes, and may therefore be particularly important for public health in general.

The research continues…

While many beetroot supplement studies have been comprehensive, there is still much to do in terms of how the laws and regulations for food and food supplements are developed and managed.

The health food supplement industry must stick to authorised health claims, but the process to get a new claim approved is expensive and slow, so not attractive to companies, particularly when their competitors will benefit as much as themselves if they do make the investment. Inflation of the benefits of the compounds within beetroot by companies producing supplements have been rife. The laws around this are outdated in the light of recent research and need to be reviewed to appropriately protect consumers against false claims.

In universities, a good place to start would be to require scientists to prove that they understand the health claims legislation before they can publish any research in the area.

You might also like:

• Find out more about the author, Dr Kirsten Brandt, Visiting Lecturer in Food and Human Nutrition at Newcastle University
• Explore the EU register of authorised health claims in nutrition 

Explore the studies mentioned in this blog:

• Domínguez, R., et al. (2018) ‘Effects of beetroot juice supplementation on intermittent high-intensity exercise efforts’. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12970-017-0204-9
• Grönroos R, et al. (2024) ‘Effects of beetroot juice on blood pressure in hypertension according to European Society of Hypertension Guidelines: A systematic review and meta-analysis.’ Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases, 2024; 34, 2240-2256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.numecd.2024.06.009
• Rojano-Ortega D, et al. ‘Effects of Beetroot Supplementation on Recovery After Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage: A Systematic Review.’ Sports Health. 2022 Jul-Aug;14(4):556-565. doi: 10.1177/19417381211036412
• Qadir, O.K., Seal, C.J., Ashor, A.W. et al. ‘Double-blind controlled dietary cross-over intervention with differentially fertilised intact lettuce leaves shows acute reduction in blood pressure in young adults, associated with faster uptake of nitrate than of phenolics’. Eur J Nutr 61, 4191–4203 (2022)
• Bowles, E. F., Burleigh, M., Mira, A., Van Breda, S. G. J., Weitzberg, E., & Rosier, B. T. (2025). ‘Nitrate: “the source makes the poison.”’ Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 65(24), 4676–4702
• Alhulaefi, S. S., Watson, A. W., Ramsay, S. E., Jakubovics, N. S., Matu, J., Griffiths, A., … Shannon, O. M. (2025). Effects of dietary nitrate supplementation on oral health and associated markers of systemic health: a systematic review. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 65(14), 2813–2828. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2024.2351168

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