We know it’s not the tastiest of drinks, but hear us out here; beetroot juice could hold a solution to a whole host of your health problems.
We don’t throw the word ‘superfood’ around lightly (jokes, we definitely do), but the humble beet juice is surely a contender based on some recent scientific findings, packing a powerful nutrient punch with folate, manganese, potassium and iron.
Most notably is the suggestion that the tangy purple juice can help fend off erectile dysfunction. The theory gets quite scientific, so pay attention if this has tweaked your interest because it turns out that ‘beet’ really could improve your ‘root’.
Beetroot juice has a high concentration of nitrates, assistants in the production of nitric oxide in the body, a chemical that opens constricted blood vessels and therefore delivering more blood to the muscle tissue. More blood delivery equals bigger muscles, and in the case of your corpus cavernosum (the muscle tissue in your penis), a stronger erection.
This increased blood flow, it’s suggested, assists keeping you harder for longer when having a pre-sex juice.
However the benefits of beetroot juice don’t end with the performance of your ole fella.
According to a new (admittedly small) study released this week, beet juice can reduce walking pain associated with peripheral artery disease, a condition in which narrowed blood vessels limit the flow of blood to the limbs.
Relying on the same chemical compound and mechanics that get you hard, the increased blood flow due to nitrate allows muscles to uptake oxygen more efficiently.
“Our early work in patients with PAD showed that a single dose of beetroot juice increased pain free walking by 18 percent when compared to a placebo juice with no inorganic nitrate,” said study author Jason David Allen of the University of Virginia, in an email to Reuters.
The scientists have spoken; have a ‘root whenever you can… juice that is.