9 Impressive Health Benefits of Beetroot

Beetroots, commonly known as beets, are a popular root vegetable used in many cuisines around the world. Beets are packed with essential vitamins, minerals and plant compounds, some of which have medicinal properties. What’s more, they are delicious and easy to add to your diet. This article lists 9 health benefits of beets, all supported by science.

The following article was written by Daisy Coyle, APD for the website Healthline. Follow Healthline by clicking the following link: https://www.healthline.com/

1. Many Nutrients in Few Calories

Beets boast an impressive nutritional profile.

They are low in calories, yet high in valuable vitamins and minerals. In fact, they contain a bit of almost all the vitamins and minerals that you need (1).

Here is an overview of the nutrients found in a 3.5-ounce (100-gram) serving of cooked beetroot (1):

Calories: 44
Protein: 1.7 grams
Fat: 0.2 grams
Fiber: 2 grams
Vitamin C: 6% of the RDI
Folate: 20% of the RDI
Vitamin B6: 3% of the RDI
Magnesium: 6% of the RDI
Potassium: 9% of the RDI
Phosphorous: 4% of the RDI
Manganese: 16% of the RDI
Iron: 4% of the RDI

Beets also contain inorganic nitrates and pigments, both of which are plant compounds that have a number of health benefits.

SUMMARY:
Beets are loaded with vitamins and minerals and low in calories and fat. They also contain inorganic nitrates and pigments, both of which have a number of health benefits.

2. Helps Keep Blood Pressure in Check

Heart disease, including heart attacks, heart failure and stroke, is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. And high blood pressure is one of the leading risk factors for the development of these conditions.

Studies have shown that beets can significantly lower blood pressure by up to 4–10 mmHg over a period of only a few hours (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source).

The effect appears to be greater for systolic blood pressure, or pressure when your heart contracts, rather than diastolic blood pressure, or pressure when your heart is relaxed. The effect may also be stronger for raw beets than cooked beets (5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source).

These blood pressure-lowering effects are likely due to the high concentration of nitrates in beets. In your body, dietary nitrates are converted into nitric oxide, a molecule that dilates blood vessels, causing blood pressure to drop (9Trusted Source). Blood nitrate levels remain elevated for about six hours after eating dietary nitrate. Therefore, beets only have a temporary effect on blood pressure, and regular consumption is required to experience long-term reductions in blood pressure (10Trusted Source).

SUMMARY:
Beets contain a high concentration of nitrates, which have a blood pressure-lowering effect. This may lead to a reduced risk of heart attacks, heart failure and stroke.

3. Can Improve Athletic Performance

Several studies suggest that dietary nitrates may enhance athletic performance. For this reason, beets are often used by athletes.

Nitrates appear to affect physical performance by improving the efficiency of mitochondria, which are responsible for producing energy in your cells (11Trusted Source).

In two studies including seven and eight men, consuming 17 ounces (500 ml) of beet juice daily for six days extended time to exhaustion during high-intensity exercise by 15–25%, which is a 1–2% improvement in overall performance (7Trusted Source, 12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source).

Eating beets may also improve cycling and athletic performance and increase oxygen use by up to 20% (7Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source, 15Trusted Source, 16Trusted Source). One small study of nine competitive cyclists looked at the effect of 17 ounces (500 ml) of beetroot juice on cycling time trial performance over 2.5 and 10 miles (4 and 16.1 km).

Drinking beetroot juice improved performance by 2.8% over the 2.5-mile (4-km) time trial and 2.7% over the 10-mile (16.1-km) trial (17Trusted Source).

It’s important to note that blood nitrate levels peak within 2–3 hours. Therefore, to maximize their potential, it’s best to consume beets 2–3 hours before training or competing (18Trusted Source).

SUMMARY:
Eating beets may enhance athletic performance by improving oxygen use and time to exhaustion. To maximize their effects, beets should be consumed 2–3 hours prior to training or competing.

4. May Help Fight Inflammation

Chronic inflammation is associated with a number of diseases, such as obesity, heart disease, liver disease and cancer (19Trusted Source). Beets contain pigments called betalains, which may potentially possess a number of anti-inflammatory properties (8Trusted Source, 20Trusted Source, 21Trusted Source). However, most of the research in this area has been conducted in rats.

Beetroot juice and beetroot extract have been shown to reduce kidney inflammation in rats injected with toxic chemicals known to induce serious injury (20Trusted Source, 22Trusted Source).

One study in humans with osteoarthritis showed that betalain capsules made with beetroot extract reduced pain and discomfort associated with the condition (23).

While these studies suggest that beets have an anti-inflammatory effect, human studies are needed to determine whether beets could be used to reduce inflammation.

SUMMARY:
Beets may have a number of anti-inflammatory effects. However, further research in humans is required to confirm this theory.

5. May Improve Digestive Health

Dietary fiber is an important component of a healthy diet. It has been linked to many health benefits, including improved digestion. One cup of beetroot contains 3.4 grams of fiber, making beets a good fiber source (1).

Fiber bypasses digestion and heads down to the colon where it either feeds the friendly gut bacteria or adds bulk to stool. This can promote digestive health, keep you regular and prevent digestive conditions like constipation, inflammatory bowel disease and diverticulitis (24Trusted Source, 25Trusted Source). Moreover, fiber has been linked to a reduced risk of chronic diseases including colon cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes (26Trusted Source, 27Trusted Source, 28Trusted Source).

SUMMARY:
Beets are a good source of fiber, which is beneficial for digestive health, as well as reducing the risk of a number of chronic health conditions.

6. May Help Support Brain Health

Mental and cognitive function naturally decline with age. For some, this decline is significant and may result in conditions like dementia. A reduction in blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain may contribute to this decline (29Trusted Source, 30Trusted Source, 31Trusted Source).

Interestingly, the nitrates in beets may improve mental and cognitive function by promoting the dilation of blood vessels and thus increasing blood flow to the brain (32Trusted Source). Beets have been shown to particularly improve blood flow to the frontal lobe of the brain, an area associated with higher-level thinking, such as decision making and working memory (33Trusted Source).

Furthermore, one study in type 2 diabetics looked at the effect of beets on simple reaction time, which is a measure of cognitive function. Simple reaction time during a computer-based cognitive function test was 4% faster in those who consumed 8.5 ounces (250 ml) of beetroot juice daily for two weeks, compared to the placebo (34Trusted Source).

However, whether beets could be used in a clinical setting to improve brain function and reduce the risk of dementia remains to be seen.

SUMMARY:
Beets contain nitrates, which may help increase blood flow to the brain, improve cognitive function and possibly reduce the risk of dementia. However, more research in this area is needed.

7. May Have Some Anti-Cancer Properties

Cancer is a serious and potentially fatal disease characterized by the uncontrolled growth of cells. The antioxidant content and anti-inflammatory nature of beets have led to an interest in its ability to prevent cancer. However, the current evidence is fairly limited.

Beetroot extract has been shown to reduce the division and growth of tumor cells in animals (35Trusted Source, 36Trusted Source). One test-tube study using human cells found that beetroot extract, which is high in betalain pigments, reduced the growth of prostate and breast cancer cells (37Trusted Source).

It is important to note that these studies were performed in isolated human cells and rats. Further research is necessary to determine whether similar effects would be found in living, breathing humans.

SUMMARY:
Studies in isolated human cells and rats have shown that the pigments in beets may help reduce the growth of cancer cells.

8. May Help You Lose Weight

Beets have several nutritional properties that should make them good for weight loss. First, beets are low in calories and high in water (1). Increasing your intake of low-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables has been associated with weight loss (38Trusted Source, 39Trusted Source).

Furthermore, despite their low calorie content, beets contain moderate amounts of protein and fiber. These are both important nutrients for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight (40Trusted Source, 41Trusted Source, 42Trusted Source).

The fiber in beets may also help promote weight loss by reducing appetite and promoting feelings of fullness, thereby reducing overall calorie intake (43Trusted Source, 44Trusted Source, 45Trusted Source).

While no studies have directly tested the effects of beets on weight, it’s likely that adding beets to your diet can aid in weight loss.

SUMMARY:
Beets have a high water and low calorie content. Both of these properties are beneficial for weight loss.

9. Delicious and Easy to Include in Your Diet

This last one is not a health benefit, yet it is still important. Not only are beets nutritious, but they are also incredibly delicious and easy to incorporate into your diet.

Beets can be juiced, roasted, steamed or pickled. Also, they can be bought precooked and canned for convenience. Choose beets that are heavy for their size with fresh, unwilted green leafy tops still attached.

Dietary nitrates are water soluble, so it is best to avoid boiling beets to maximize their nitrate content.

Here are some delicious and interesting ways to add more beets to your diet:

Beetroot salad: Grated beets make a flavorful and colorful addition to coleslaw.
Beetroot dip: Beets blended with Greek yogurt make a delicious and healthy dip.
Beetroot juice: Fresh beetroot juice is best, as store-bought juice can be high in added sugars and may only contain a small amount of beets.
Beetroot leaves: Beet leaves can be cooked and enjoyed like spinach, so don’t throw them out.

SUMMARY:
Beetroot is a delicious and versatile vegetable that is easy to add to your diet. Choose beets that are heavy for their size with green tops still attached.

The Bottom Line

Beets provide some impressive health benefits.

Not to mention, they are low in calories and a great source of nutrients, including fiber, folate and vitamin C.

Beets also contain nitrates and pigments that may help lower blood pressure and improve athletic performance.

Lastly, beets are delicious and versatile, fitting well into a healthy and balanced diet.

Oshun Health’s Phyto Fuel has beetroot as its main ingredient and is an excellent dietary support for individuals with heart disease. Heart disease is often related to chronic inflammation and Phyto fuel contains more than one component that helps to fights chronic inflammation.

Henry Deale, chemist Oshun Health

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Fulvic Acid as a Potent Antiviral

Updated: 25 February 2025

Reading time: 10 minutes

Research shows that humic acid, of which fulvic acid forms part, binds so strongly to viruses that it can actually displace them from a cell surface. In vitro studies have shown, for example, that if you allow herpes simplex viruses to attach to host cells and then add humic acid to the solution, it will displace viruses from infected cell surfaces. That is, humic acid has a greater affinity for the virus than the virus does for the host cell. Thus, humic acid can actually displace a virus even after it has attached itself to the surface of a cell.[6]

The following article was originally posted by Michael Ash for the website of Clinical Education, a ‘Not for Profit’ organisation that brings a range of educational experiences to healthcare professionals. Follow Clinical Education by clicking on the following link: https://www.clinicaleducation.org/

The interview with Richard J Laub, MS, PhD, CChem, FRSC, was conducted by Focus Allergy Research Group.

*Note by Oshun Health: Humic Acids referred to in this article is the collective name for both humic acid and fulvic acid. In order to utilise humic acid, it is broken down to fulvic acid in the human gut. This is because humic acid is not soluble at the low pH (acidic) level of the stomach whereas fulvic acid is soluble at any pH level. The antiviral properties referred to in the article, therefore, applies to fulvic acid as well as humic acid.

An Interview with: Richard J Laub, MS, PhD, CChem, FRSC, is a chemist with nearly 150 peer-reviewed published research papers, sixteen patents, and numerous invited reviews and symposium presentations. He was formerly a professor of chemistry at The Ohio State University and San Diego State University, was a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in London, England, was an Alcoa fellow in San Diego, and a Science Research Council fellow in Swansea, Wales. For the last 17 years, Dr. Laub has focused exclusively on sourcing, analysing, studying, extracting and purifying humic acid, a remarkable high-mineral, healing substance with potent antiviral properties, found in ancient soil deposits.

Focus: You have devoted the last 17 years of your life to researching humic acid, an extract of ancient organic soil deposits. These ancient soil deposits—named humus, or humin, from the Greek word for soil—can be found all over the world and contain highly-concentrated minerals and healing substances. It’s interesting that in essence, the soil that nourishes plant life–and later the plant that dies and becomes part of the soil–contains such potent healing substances. Can you give us some basic facts about humic and fulvic acids before we discuss the health benefits?

RJL: Both humic and fulvic acids are extracts from composted organic matter and prove to be excellent mineral supplements. They excel at providing all the trace minerals we need. Fulvic acid is a small and somewhat rigid molecule, with a molecular weight of about 1,500 daltons (a dalton is a unit of mass commonly used in chemistry). Humic acid is equally potent as a mineral supplement, but is a much heavier, bigger molecule. It weighs about 50,000 daltons. Humic acid is flexible, because it is made up of many chains of molecules. It looks a bit like a series of wagon wheels, one inside the other, with spokes going from one wheel to the next. This flexibility is a very important contributor to its antiviral properties.

Focus: What do these very different shapes—small and rigid, or large and flexible—mean in terms of human health?

RJL: Because of its size and flexibility, certain humic acids from particular soil deposits turn out to be potent, broad-spectrum antivirals. That is because humic acid contains many kinds of “functional groups” (specific groups of atoms) that can bind to a multitude of viruses. Research has shown certain humic acids to be effective in vitro against a wide range of viruses, including influenza, HSV, HIV, and others.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]

Focus: How exactly does humic acid bind to a virus?

RJL: Binding occurs through hydrogen bonding. Electropositive atoms attract electronegative atoms. These are the same forces that hold DNA together. What is remarkable is that humic acid, with its many kinds of functional groups, binds more strongly to viruses than do our own cells. Certain humic acids from certain soil deposits are essentially like a really, really sticky piece of Velcro. Viruses also have really sticky sites—that’s how they manage to bind to a host cell. When these two very sticky pieces of Velcro come together they bind together very strongly.

Focus: Can you explain what a virus does once it attaches to a cell receptor?

RJL: It essentially pokes a hole in the cell, and injects either its RNA or DNA–its genomic material–into the cell. At that point the virus has essentially spent itself, but the viral material inside the cell uses the cell’s machinery to create more viruses, which then leave the cell and go on to bind to and infect other cells.

Focus: What happens to a virus when it binds to humic acid instead of a cell surface?

RJL: Humic acid essentially neutralises a virus’s chemical “stickiness”. Doing so in turn prevents the virus from reproducing since it can no longer attach (“fuse”) to the surface of a host cell. The immune system can then begin to eliminate the virus (largely through the action of macrophages). Also, viruses don’t live forever: if not allowed to reproduce, influenza viruses, for example, die out in 36-48 hours.

Focus: What happens if viruses have already attached to your cells? Can humic acid help?

RJL: Humic acid binds so strongly to viruses that it can actually displace them from a cell surface. In vitro studies have shown, for example, that if you allow herpes simplex viruses to attach to host cells and then add humic acid to the solution, it will displace viruses from infected cell surfaces. That is, humic acid has a greater affinity for the virus than the virus does for the host cell. Thus, humic acid can actually displace a virus even after it has attached itself to the surface of a cell.[6]

Focus: That’s quite amazing—that this natural substance can displace viruses that have already locked onto cells. Is this true of any humic acid from around the world?

RJL: No. Humic acid varies dramatically from site to site. Humic acids from different deposits have very different physicochemical properties. Just like coal—the coal from South Africa is very different in makeup than the coal from Birmingham in Britain. For instance, one of the better-known humic acid deposits in the United States occurs in the state of New Mexico, where humic acid is mined for agriculture–as a fertiliser–and also for the petroleum industry as a drilling mud additive. From an agricultural standpoint New Mexico humic acid is great, but it is not very effective at combating human viruses. A lot of the research I carried out in the early days was simply obtaining samples of humic acid from around the world and testing them to see which ones were efficacious against human viral disease. Remember, humic acid is the result of composted organic matter that is 50-100,000 years old, and that can be found almost anywhere—places where there are freshwater deposits and vegetation living around freshwater lakes, other places where there are saltwater deposits and decomposed organic matter at the edge of marine environments. Some humic acids come from decomposed forests, others from marshes, peat bogs, or scrub-brush. Any plant can be composted into humic acid, but the enormous variety of plant life means that each source of humic acid is unique.

Focus: Once you found the ideal antiviral humic acid, what did you do?

RJL: The next challenge was to purify and sterilise it without degrading it. When you first dig humic acid out of the ground it is dark-brown or even black. Shilajit is a very crude form of humic acid that has been used around the world for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. The most familiar form of humic acid looks like coal, and is sometimes called leonardite or brown coal—though it isn’t actually coal. So, the challenge was to extract the humic acid without damaging it. Methodologies suitable for sterilisation of the final processed product also took very considerable research and development. (The original microbes that created the humus are of course long since dead, but other bacteria and moulds flourish in such soil deposits.) Overall, ten solid years of research and development were required to identify a quality source of humic acid that could also be purified and sterilised without diminishing its effectiveness as a human antiviral agent.

Focus: If one takes humic acid orally, when do peak blood levels occur?

RJL: Peak levels occur at about four hours. By eight to twelve hours the substance is pretty much cleared out of the bloodstream.

Focus: Do you think it has any other special properties beyond being a great mineral source and a potent antiviral?

RJL: Some researchers claim it boosts the immune system, but I’m not convinced it does so directly.[7] I think that humic acid’s wide spectrum of important trace minerals, coupled with its antiviral properties, result in a stronger immune system indirectly. Some of the trace minerals are present in very, very tiny amounts—just a few parts per million—but that’s exactly what we need to support enzyme functions among other things. I also think there are a lot of viruses we are all carrying that haven’t yet been identified (“stealth” viruses). But humic acid will bind to them, regardless.

Focus: That just shows you the broad-spectrum action of humic acid, so that it’s likely to work on many viruses we carry that have not yet been identified. I assume you take it yourself?

RJL: Of course. And I haven’t had a cold or the flu since 2004. Not one.

References

[1] F. J. Lu, S. N. Tseng, et al. In Vitro Anti-Influenza Virus Activity of Synthetic Humate Analogues Derived from Protocatechuic Acid. Arch. Virol. 2002, 147(2), 273-284 View Abstract

[2] C. E. J. van Rensburg, J. Dekker, et al. Investigations of the Anti- HIV Properties of Oxihumate. Chemotherapy 2002, 48(3), 138-143. View Abstract

[3] G. Kornilaeva, A. Becovich, et al. New Humic Acid Derivative as Potent Inhibitor of HIV-1 Replication. Med. Gen. Med. 2004, 6(3), A10360 View Summary PDF

[4] R. Kloecking, B. Helbig, G. Schotz, et al. Anti-HSV-1 Activity of Synthetic Humic Acid-Like Polymers Derived from p-Diphenolic Starting Compounds. Arch. Chem. Chemother. 2002, 13(4), 241-249

[5] Laub Biochem Specialty Labsl, 2001-2002, research conducted by contract for Virology Branch of the Antiviral Research and Antimicrobial Chemistry Program (Dr. Christopher Tseng, Program Officer), Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) Screening and Testing Program for Antiviral, Immunomodulatory, Antitumor and/or Drug Delivery Activities, National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, Maryland)

[6] Laub Biochem Specialty Labs, Humic Acid Inhibition of HSV Infection. 1998

[7] G. K. Joone, J. Dekker, et al. Investigation of the Immunostimulatory Properties of Oxihumates. Z. Naturforsch. C: J. Biosci. 2003, 58(3/4) 263-267. PMID: 12710739 View Abstract LinkedInFacebookTwitterEmailPrintMor

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