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A 12-week course of daily beetroot juice supplement for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) lowered blood pressure and improved how far patients could walk in six minutes in research. COPD includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, causes breathing difficulties and severely limits people's capacity for physical activity. The new research tested a concentrated beetroot juice supplement that is high in nitrate against a beetroot juice placebo. Professor Nicholas Hopkinson said, "There is some evidence beetroot juice as a source of nitrate supplementation could be used by athletes. Higher levels of nitrate in the blood can increase the availability of...

Drinking beetroot juice every day for six months after having a stent fitted reduced the chance of angina patients having a heart attack or needing a repeat procedure, according to new research. The researchers found that 16 percent of angina patients had a serious heart or circulatory incident, like a heart attack or need for another procedure, in the two years after having a stent fitted. However, when patients had beetroot juice daily, this dropped to 7.5 percent. Thousands of coronary heart disease patients each year in the UK have a stent implanted, in a procedure known as a percutaneous...

A senior in Truro, N.S., is thanking police after an officer recovered a bag of beets from an intoxicated cyclist which may have been stolen from her community garden plot. Olga McCabe-Cain said she arrived at the King Street community garden on the site of the former St. Mary's Elementary School in Truro at around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, only to discover that a number of her beet plants were missing. "It was so disappointing," McCabe-Cain said. "They cleaned the row right out nicely — even padded it over — and left one bunch of beets at the end." She...

I've always liked canned beets, pickled or plain, and usually in salads; but I've never cooked or eaten fresh beets before. I decided to try a simple roasted beet for my first experiment. Beets peel better if they're roasted first, so I didn't peel them at the start. Cut off the stem ends, leaving about an inch for a 'handle' (what to do with the greens will be a later project). Also, cut off any long, skinny root, and then wash the beets well - dirt seems to especially collect up near the stem. Place the cleaned and dried beats...

American Crystal Sugar threatens a lockout, which would be the company's first work stoppage since 1981. When the first sugar beets ripen and the Red River ... A lockout would affect three Minnesota plants -- in Moorhead, East Grand Forks and Crookston -- and mills in Hillsboro and Drayton, N.D. The last time American Crystal Sugar had a work stoppage was in 1981, when the union struck for almost a month. Union representatives say American Crystal Sugar's contract proposal would dismantle seniority rights and allow the company to contract out union jobs to outside firms. There also is disagreement over...

Winston-Salem, N.C. – Researchers for the first time have shown that drinking beet juice can increase blood flow to the brain in older adults – a finding that could hold great potential for combating the progression of dementia. The research findings are available online in Nitric Oxide: Biology and Chemistry, the peer-reviewed journal of the Nitric Oxide Society and will be available in print soon. (Read the abstract.) "There have been several very high-profile studies showing that drinking beet juice can lower blood pressure, but we wanted to show that drinking beet juice also increases perfusion, or blood flow, to...

It may not be as dramatic or spark the (surprising) interest the Broccoli Incident did during the first Bush administration, but the Obama White House does offer this bit of vegetable news: Michelle Obama hates beets. This tidbit comes from an interview for the September issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, in which Obama discusses the first family’s eating habits and says: “Neither the president nor I have the beet gene.” This brings to mind President George H.W. Bush, who in 1990 demonstrated his assertiveness to the American public by declaring during a news conference: I do not like broccoli. I...

Drinking beetroot juice boosts stamina and could help people exercise for up to 16% longer, a UK study suggests. A University of Exeter team found nitrate contained in the vegetable leads to a reduction in oxygen uptake - making exercise less tiring. The small Journal of Applied Physiology study suggests the effect is greater than that which can be achieved by regular training. Beetroot juice has previously been shown to reduce blood pressure.