thanks - i have used off and on one of the lesser performing ones, guess if might change source if i decide to ever use again

How about just juicing your own? Any idea of how that compares?

As I mentioned in the original thread, the nitrate content of beets varies widely, depending upon both growing conditions and the variety of beet.

Moreover, you would still have to drink the juice from 3-4 nitrate-rich beets to achieve the apparent minimal effective dose of ~5 mmol.

Thus, while I would never discourage anyone from eating their vegetables as their grandmother told them to, I don't think you can really count on juicing beets yourself as a guaranteed way of providing sufficient nitrate to enhance athletic performance.

Probably depends largely on how much nitrate is in the fertilizer

Conventionally-grown vegetables do tend to have higher nitrate content than their organically-grown equivalents. However, there are numerous other factors that play a role as well. I would therefore have said "partially" instead of "largely".

ETA: We did in fact analyze our data in light of this issue, but the results were skewed by the uneven distribution of conventional/organic products across the different categories (i.e., powders, mixed drinks, concentrates, bulk juices).

I tend to buy beets in bulk from the local Mexican market as they are inexpensive and I'm too che... frugal to buy processed products..

I'll make sure I drink more than the juice of 4 beets before races. Shouldn't be a problem as I love the stuff and drink a bunch daily anyways.

Became a beet convert years ago thanks in large part to articles about your work on them, but had never researched beyond reading that I had to drink a minimum of 500mL an hour or two before a race

So, for example, Beet Elite (number 5).

It's saying it has one of the highest concentrations, but one of the lowest content amounts?

So if you took an additional serving (10g is a serving, I think), you'd have as much content as the Beet It, Knudsen, etc?

Is that correct? Is Beet Elite's servings just too minimal and those higher content brands just have more grams per serving?

Thanks.

The one I use at the moment isn't on the list. Beet VO2max.

I've used Beet Elite also.

I'm a moderate believer in it. Sometimes I swear at given data set for workout or something looks like it benefited, then again, could be my personal confirmation bias.

Beet Elite is a bit of a special case, because it (and the company's Superbeets powder) contains sufficient nitrite to at least potentially have physiological effects.

That aside, yes, you are interpreting the graph correctly, i.e., panel A shows content or concentration, panel B shows how much you would receive if you ingested the recommended dose (or, in the case of bulk juices for which no specific volume is recommended, 500 mL, as used in early research studies and also assumed by another paper).

Note that there are potential disadvantages of ingesting greater amounts than recommended by the manufacturers, e.g., increased cost, greater intake of oxaloacetate, larger volume filling stomach, etc.

Despite the fact that it targets athletes directly, we excluded Beet VO2max from our testing because it also contains L-arginine.

Similarly, we also excluded some products that contained beets along with other nitrate-rich vegetables (to keep things apples-to-apples...er, beet-to-beet).

Along those lines: has there been and documented bump in effect by going higher than the minimum effective dose?

Thanks Andrew. I was actually the person who mentioned the Lakewood juice. I drink 8oz 2x a day the 2 days before and 8oz morning of. Gun to my head, I think it works.

JH

I believe that Super Beets and Beet Elite are the exact same thing, except for serving size. A few years ago, I compared the nutritional information on the canisters, and for the same size Super Beets had twice as many servings, each serving was half the size (1 scoop instead of 2), and all the other numbers were half of Beet Elite...

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I reached the same conclusion after Edgar measured the nitrate and nitrite contents.

There have only been a couple/three formal dose-response studies, so it is difficult to determine the optimal dose. Because of this, we are currently comparing 10 vs. 20 mmol (as KNO3) in HF patients and 0.15 vs. 0.30 mmol/kg (from concentrated BRJ) in healthy older men and women.

In general, though, it seems that the standard "take two shots of Beet It! and call me in the morning" approach works just fine.

On a related note, despite what you might read various places there really isn't much, if any, good evidence that supplementing for multiple days provides any significant benefit. IOW, at least at this stage it seems to simply be an acute effect (in humans, anyway...rats could be different, but their nitrate/nitrite/nitric oxide metabolism is considerably different from that in people, making extrapolation of such studies to humans questionable).

Two?

I asked you in the original thread about altRED. At the time you said you were not impressed by the marketing. Do you have any more thoughts on this now?

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Two.

Studies that have used only one have had rather mixed results; three doesn't seem to be any better than two (on average).

I have not paid any further attention to the product, so no new thoughts (also no new data, at least that I am aware).

Looks like we're in the same boat. I use PureCleanPowder (mainly because I got a good deal on six canisters). Looks like it has pretty high potential, but a single serving (10g) is too small. I take two servings the day before and then the day of the race, so I'm probably right about at that minimal effective dose. Maybe this weekend I'll bump it up to three on race morning.

I can't say that I KNOW it gives a performance improvement, but anecdotally I believe it does. And I'm eating extra vegetables, so I can't really find any harm.

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FWIW, that seems to the issue with all of the powders: the recommended serving size is just too small.

OTOH, if they recommended that you use 2-4 x as much, then the price per serving would be much higher, and they might lose sales that way.

ETA: This, BTW, is why we included data for both concentration and content (i.e., amount per serving) in the paper, i.e., so people could adjust doses accordingly if they wished.

Considering the often-large variability between samples from any given manufacturer, though, at the end of the day you never really know exactly how much you are receiving (unless of course you measure it yourself).

Good information. Appreciate it!

What’s the best time to take the beet juice(pre-workout/post/unimportant) to maximize the effect??

Plasma nitrate and nitrite levels peak about 2 h after ingestion, then begin a slow decline that returns them to normal after about 24 h. The "window of opportunity" is therefore pretty broad, i.e., as long as you allow enough time up front you don't have to worry too much about the timing.

There is one recent study indicating that "topping up" during prolonged aerobic exercise may be helpful, but for various reasons I would say that it is a bit premature to take that as a given (although there really isn't any reason to think that it would hurt).

Timing is one issue where there could be a difference between acute (single dose) and chronic (multi-day) supplementation. For many aspects, it is the tissue, not plasma, concentration that (should) matters (matter), and the former is several-fold higher than the latter. It is therefore theoretically possible that a "loading phase" may result in more sustained responses. This is really just speculation on my part, however, as there have only been a few studies that have measured muscle nitrate and nitrite in the context of supplementation and exercise in rats, and none in humans. (One study has reported values for nitrate, but the results are questionable.)

We have recently developed a precise and accurate method for measuring nitrate and nitrite in the small amounts of tissue obtainable via biopsy, and are presently using it to address these (and other) questions:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30113272

excuse myself for being the layman.....does that mean 'loading' over several days is not necessary? and one shot is sufficient?

Would be interesting to see how much is in the various beer powders out there

Correct.

To be specific: initial studies included a "loading phase" (typically 5 d, but sometimes longer), leading subsequent investigations to just follow along. There are also animal data demonstrating changes in protein expression as a result of dietary nitrate supplementation, which, given the turnover rate of most proteins, would generally take at least a few days to occur (or at least be maximized). Together, these publications established the idea that you need to ingest nitrate for multiple days prior to competition.

If you actually pay attention to the data, however, especially in humans, there is (as I indicated before) very little, if any, evidence that the physiological effects of nitrate supplementation reflect anything other than just an acute effect:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29547495

Sadly, this is often the case in science, i.e., ideas become firmly established in peoples' minds before they really should, and it is only upon further study/reflection that things get properly sorted out. Indeed, I recently had to educate a reviewer of one of our articles about this very fact (i.e., they had bought in to the notion that there was a difference between acute and chronic supplementation).

A couple of more dietary nitrate-related "facts" that aren't really as solid as reading even the primary literature would lead you to believe:

1) The effects that are seen are the result of changes in nitric oxide availability specifically in type II, or fast-twitch fibers.

This hypothesis is based on the fact that, at least in rodents, the nitric oxide system plays a much more important role in type II vs. type I fibers. Andy Jones has therefore done a couple of studies attempting to demonstrate that this is also true in humans (e.g., by comparing the benefits of nitrate ingestion in subjects pedaling very fast vs. very slowly). In humans, however, endogenous nitric oxide production/action is just as high in slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers, such that you wouldn't necessarily expect a fiber type-specific effect. Furthermore, when we analyzed data from subjects who functionally differed widely in muscle contractile properties, we did not see any correlation between an individual's apparent fiber type and the extent to which they benefited from nitrate supplementation:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29368802

2) Highly-trained subjects do not benefit from dietary nitrate supplementation.

It is true that highly-trained endurance athletes seem to benefit less, if at all, from nitrate supplementation, at least when it comes to the effects on endurance exercise. This could be due to frequent activation of the endogenous nitric oxide synthase system, leading to accumulation of nitrite and nitrate (NO -> NO2- -> NO3-). However, it doesn't seem to be true with respect to the effects of nitrate supplmentation on muscle contractile properties:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26641379

I discuss these issues in greater detail in this recent review:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30001275

Beer, or beet?

(I think it would be funny to create a parody YouTube video of the Kavanaugh's recent hearing, substituting "beets" for every time he said "beer".)

Lol

so throw out beet elite, or up the dose?

Take two shots of Beet It and go from crappy 3k'er to less crappy 3k'er?

* mix beet supplement with baking soda or no benefit to do both?

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Same questions...Based on the chart I'm trying to figure out what the best solution is. I'm leaning towards just doubling up on the Beet It shots.

Thank you, Prof Coogan!

Beet Elite is an interesting case, as it (and the companies similar - identical? - product Super beets, of Dana Loesch fame) is the only supplement we tested that contains more than a tiny amount of nitrite

The good news is that that means a more rapid onset of action, as shown in a recent study from Jones' lab.

The bad news is that the effects also dissipate more rapidly, as shown in the same study.

I will leave it to astute readers to figure out what the IU tech transfer office is working on. ;)

Two shots of Beet It is certainly the safe bet (and is what has been used in most scientific studies, especially once they started selling a nitrate-free version for use as a placebo).

wait, they actually sold a placebo? i dont understand. fascinating stuff here, so at any rate, thanks for the study.

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Present tense.

Beet It now sells a nitrate-free placebo to researchers such as myself, making it possible to do studies of nitrate per se, with BRJ just as the vehicle.*

Before it became available about 10 y ago, investigators were forced to use other juices (e.g., black currant juice) as the comparator. Unfortunately, this leaves unanswered the question of what substance or substances in BRJ is responsible for any effect that are observed.

*There are actually several studies suggestive of some interaction between nitrate and other compounds in BRJ, but they aren't very definitive.

Funny that beetelite states right on the box: "Do not exceed more than one serving (10g) in 24 hours."

Might be a bit of a tangent, but is there a type of variety that is better than the other?

I generally grow a Detroit dark red variety as it seems the most common seed at the store, but there are others ruby queen, chiogga, golden varieties, etc

Possibly concerned about people ingesting too much nitrite.

This study from Austria:

Wruss, J., Waldenburger, G., Huemer, S., Uygun, P., Lanzerstorfer, P., Müller, U., Höglinger, O., Weghuber, J. (2015). Composition characteristics of commercial beetroot products and beetroot juice prepared from seven beetroot varieties grown in Upper Austria. J Food Comp Anal 42: 46-55.

grew the following varieties of beets all on the same 12 m^2 plot of land, then harvested them and analyzed their composition:

Agyptische, Plattrunde, Bolivar, Forono, Mona Lisa, Moronia, Redval and Robuschka. Nitrate contents in ug/mL were (in order) 1637 +/- 565, 914 +/- 422, 1730 +/- 526, 4626 +/- 658, 1358 +/- 742, 2963 +/- 279, and 564 +/- 129.

Unfortunately, I have no clue as to how these varieties might align with names that you might find in other countries.

ETA: Looking on Burpee Seeds just now, I see that they alone sell 16 different varieties...it is therefore perhaps unsurprising that beet juice from various sources varies markedly in nitrate content.

Looks like Lakewood do a concentrate now. Says that ~370ml bottle make ~1.4litres so just ordered to try that out: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B075V37LF5/

If 1.4l of reconstituted beet juice has the same amount of nitrates as their normal beet juice (~18mmol / 500ml), you could get the same dosage as a "beet it sport pro-elite" (~6mmol / 70ml) in ~35ml of concentrate (36% of 125ml normal juice)

Cost wise beet it costs $73.60 CAD delivered for 15shots of 70ml (1.05l).

Lakewood beet concentrate, 2 bottles cost $36.40 CAD delivered for 21shots of 35ml (740ml).

So lots cheaper, and I won't feel bad experimenting with dosages and timings as much.

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So if one went with low doses of grandpas sublingual nitroglycerine (GTN) instead of beet juice would that result in similiar positive effects? I mean that option is probably a lot cheaper, hassle free and the active ingredient level is actually known and constant.

Dr Coogan,

I like the taste of Lakewood Organic Beet juice and figure the carbs cals and carbs can't hurt race morning. I see that it tests very high in nitrate concentration, but is that just one serving size, like 8oz?? Is that all that is needed?