Does beetroot lower blood pressure? Yes, modestly, and the detail that gets left out of most articles is which blood pressure, by how much, and at what dose. All three of those change the answer considerably.
Here is the short version of a long literature. Beetroot juice lowers systolic blood pressure by roughly four to five points in people who already have hypertension. It does not reliably move diastolic pressure. And the doses that produced those numbers were 70 to 250 milliliters of concentrated juice daily, delivering 200 to 800 milligrams of nitrate, which is not an amount any gummy or capsule on the market contains.
Outside gut health, few topics bring in more questions than heart health, and with more than 10 billion Goli gummies sold worldwide since 2018, there are plenty of them. This one has a real answer, but it also has real limits – and those limits are the part worth understanding.
The Short Answer
Beetroot juice does lower blood pressure, but modestly and specifically. Meta-analyses of randomized trials find systolic pressure drops around four to five mmHg in people with hypertension, with no reliable effect on diastolic pressure. Those results come from concentrated juice at 200 to 800 mg of nitrate daily, far more than supplement formats deliver.
In a Glass or in a Bottle: Does Beetroot Lower Blood Pressure Either Way
The gap between what the research tested and what the shelf sells is the single most important thing in this category.
What the trials used. Concentrated beetroot juice, in shots of 70 to 250 milliliters, providing several hundred milligrams of inorganic nitrate. A 2024 meta-analysis of eleven randomized trials in 349 people with hypertension found a mean systolic reduction of 5.31 mmHg against placebo.
An earlier analysis pooling twenty-two trials across roughly 1,250 participants found similar reductions at daily doses ranging from 316 to 860 mg of nitrate. That paper carries a published erratum and, more interestingly, reaches a conclusion its own title announces: that the effect is partly independent of nitrate, attributable to betalains, flavonoids, polyphenols and vitamin C in the juice.
What most supplements contain. Beetroot powder or extract, in amounts measured in hundreds of milligrams of powder rather than of nitrate. The nitrate content of a typical beetroot supplement is a small fraction of a trial dose, and many products do not state it at all.
Those are not the same product doing the same job. A beetroot supplement may be worth taking for other reasons. It is not a compressed version of the juice the trials measured.
Reading the Findings Precisely
Reading the findings precisely matters here, because the summaries circulating online round off the caveats.
The effect is on systolic pressure. The 2024 analysis found no significant effect on clinical diastolic pressure, and none on 24-hour ambulatory measurements either. A separate crossover study tracking aortic pressure over a full day found the reduction present at thirty minutes, smaller at sixty, and not sustained across the following 24 hours.
The certainty is graded low. The reviewers who ran the 2024 analysis rated the evidence low on GRADE and said the results should be interpreted with caution, which is not a phrase authors use lightly about their own findings.
And the effect appears in people who have hypertension. In people with normal blood pressure the changes are smaller and less consistent, which makes sense: there is less to move.
The Mechanism, Briefly
Understanding why beetroot does anything explains both the effect and its limits.
Beetroot is unusually high in inorganic nitrate. Bacteria on your tongue convert some of that nitrate to nitrite, which the body then converts to nitric oxide, a molecule that relaxes and widens blood vessels. Wider vessels mean lower pressure against their walls.
Two things follow from that chain. Antibacterial mouthwash can blunt the effect, because it kills the tongue bacteria doing the first conversion. And the effect depends on nitrate quantity rather than on beetroot as such, which is why the trials report nitrate doses rather than grams of vegetable.
That second point deserves more weight than it usually gets. Beetroot is not special among vegetables for containing nitrate; rocket, spinach, celery and lettuce all carry comparable or higher amounts. Beetroot became the research vehicle largely because it concentrates well into a palatable juice, not because the plant does something the others cannot.
Except that the field does not fully agree on this. The twenty-two-trial analysis argues the blood pressure effect is partly nitrate-independent, produced by other compounds in the juice. Against that, a randomized trial in sixty-eight hypertensive patients compared nitrate-rich juice against the same juice with the nitrate stripped out, and found a 9.0 mmHg systolic reduction in the first group and 0.1 mmHg in the second, which is about as direct a test of the question as anyone has run.
So the honest position is that nitrate is doing most of the work but possibly not all of it. That matters for what you buy: a beetroot supplement without a trial-level nitrate dose is not obviously pointless, but nor is there good evidence it does what the juice does. Unproven is a different thing from disproven, and this category sits in the first.
Common Misconceptions
Four beliefs cause most of the confusion here.
A Beetroot Supplement Equals a Beetroot Shot
It does not, and this is the expensive one. Trial doses of nitrate run into the hundreds of milligrams. A powder or gummy typically supplies a small fraction of that, and the difference is not made up by taking two.
The Effect Lasts All Day
The ambulatory data says otherwise. The effect on blood pressure can be measurable within hours of a dose and then diminish over time, which helps explain why trials typically use daily dosing and why single-dose studies can produce different results from longer-term trials.
Beetroot Can Replace Medication
Nothing here supports that, and the reviewers position beetroot as a possible adjunct rather than an alternative. Blood pressure medication is prescribed against measured risk, and stopping it on the strength of a four-point average is a serious mistake. The same gap between trial dose and shelf dose runs through other categories, and our piece on do collagen supplements work shows what happens when you sort a field’s trials by who paid for them.
Any Beetroot Product Works the Same
Nitrate content varies enormously between products and even between batches of the same vegetable, depending on soil and growing conditions. A product that does not state its nitrate content cannot be compared to any trial.
What to Do If Blood Pressure Is the Goal
Three steps, in order, and the first one is not a purchase.
Step One: Know Your Actual Numbers
Blood pressure is invisible without measurement, and a home monitor costs less than two months of most supplements. The American Heart Association sets out what the numbers mean, and knowing your category is what tells you whether any of this research applies to you. Readings taken over a week tell you more than any single clinic visit, and they tell you whether you are in the range where beetroot has been shown to do anything at all.
Step Two: Talk to a Doctor Before Adding Anything
Particularly if you already take blood pressure medication, since the effects can stack. This is not a formality. Nitrate-rich supplements alongside antihypertensives is a combination worth a conversation rather than an experiment.
Step Three: If You Want the Trial Effect, Use the Trial Format
That means concentrated juice at a stated nitrate dose, taken daily. If you would not keep that up, a supplement is not a smaller version of it, and it is worth being honest with yourself about which one you will actually take.
Where a Beetroot Supplement Does Fit
Being clear about this is more useful than pretending the categories overlap.
A beetroot supplement is a reasonable way to add a plant compound to a daily routine, and it usually arrives alongside other ingredients doing their own jobs. What it is not is a blood pressure intervention at the doses the research used.
If your goal is general cardiovascular support rather than lowering a specific blood pressure reading, that is a reasonable reason to take one – and it does not depend on the nitrate math adding up to a clinical dose. If your interest is your blood pressure reading, the honest answer is juice, measurement and a doctor.
Why Four Points Is Both Small and Not Nothing
A reduction of four or five points sounds trivial next to what medication does, and the honest framing sits between dismissing it and overselling it.
At population level, small shifts in average blood pressure track meaningfully with cardiovascular risk, which is why researchers take a four-point difference seriously enough to run meta-analyses about it. At individual level, four points is well within the range your own pressure varies across a single day, so you would not detect it without measuring carefully over weeks.
Both of those are true at once. The effect is real enough to publish and too small to feel, which is an awkward combination for anything sold to consumers and the reason this category attracts overstatement.
What it is not is a substitute for the things that move blood pressure by larger margins. Weight, salt intake, alcohol, exercise and prescribed medication all outperform dietary nitrate by a distance, and a supplement taken instead of any of them is a poor trade.
When This Needs Medical Attention
Some of what brings people to this question belongs in a clinic rather than a search bar.
NHS guidance notes that high blood pressure rarely produces symptoms, which is why measurement rather than sensation is the starting point. See a doctor if you have been told your blood pressure is high and are not currently being monitored, if readings at home are consistently above 140/90, or if you have symptoms such as persistent headaches, vision changes, chest pain or breathlessness. Blood pressure above 180/120 with symptoms is an emergency rather than a supplement question.
Anyone pregnant, taking antihypertensive medication, or managing kidney disease should speak to a doctor before adding nitrate-rich supplements. And because supplements are not assessed for effectiveness before sale, no product in this category has been reviewed against the trials it borrows its reputation from.
Does Beetroot Lower Blood Pressure: Your Questions Answered
How much does beetroot lower blood pressure?
In people with hypertension, meta-analyses of randomized trials find systolic reductions of roughly four to five mmHg, with a 2024 analysis of eleven trials reporting 5.31 mmHg. Diastolic pressure does not move reliably. Those are averages across groups rather than promises for individuals, and the reviewers graded the certainty of the evidence as low.
How long does it take beetroot to lower blood pressure?
The effect appears quickly and does not last long. Studies measuring aortic pressure find reductions within thirty minutes of a dose, smaller at sixty minutes, and not sustained across a full 24 hours. That is why trials dose daily. A single serving is not a lasting change, and stopping returns pressure to where it was.
Do beetroot supplements work as well as beetroot juice?
There is no good evidence that they do, and the arithmetic suggests otherwise. Trials used 200 to 800 mg of nitrate daily from concentrated juice, while most supplements supply a fraction of that and frequently do not state the figure. Goli’s Beets Cardio gummies are built around CoQ10 rather than nitrate, which makes them a different proposition rather than a smaller juice.
Can beetroot replace blood pressure medication?
No. Researchers describe beetroot as a possible adjunct to treatment, not a substitute, and stopping prescribed medication on the strength of a modest average effect is dangerous. If you want to reduce your medication, that is a conversation with the doctor who prescribed it, backed by measurements.
Does cooked beetroot work as well as juice?
Cooking reduces nitrate content, and whole beetroot delivers considerably less nitrate per serving than concentrated juice does. Eating beetroot regularly is good for other reasons, but reaching a trial-level nitrate dose from whole vegetables would take an impractical quantity. The trials used juice because concentration was the point.
Does mouthwash affect whether beetroot works?
Yes, and this surprises people. The first step in converting nitrate to nitric oxide is performed by bacteria on your tongue, and antibacterial mouthwash kills them. Studies have found the blood pressure effect blunted in people using antiseptic mouthwash, so if you are trying this, the timing of your oral hygiene matters more than you would expect.
Separating What the Juice Does From What a Gummy Is
If the trial effect needs a trial dose, then the useful thing to say about any beetroot supplement is what it actually contains and what that is for.
Goli Beets Cardio Gummies lead with CoQ10 at 100 milligrams, alongside beet root powder extract and Vitamin B12 for cellular energy production. The CoQ10 is the headline ingredient rather than the beetroot, which is worth knowing when the name suggests otherwise. These are not a substitute for the concentrated juice the blood pressure trials used, and I would rather say that plainly than let the research on one product sell a different one.
A viewer asked during a Live whether these would bring her numbers down, and the honest answer was that she should be measuring those numbers and talking to her doctor, and that a gummy was not the lever.
That gummy count passed ten billion a while back, built on people coming back rather than trying once. See what the label actually says.
You May Also Like
Format decides more than most people expect. Best morning drink for bloating ranks the options by what each one does to the gut, and finds that the plainest choice outperforms the elaborate recipes.
The Bottom Line
So, does beetroot lower blood pressure? Yes, in a specific and modest way: around four to five points of systolic pressure in people who have hypertension, from concentrated juice at doses no supplement matches.
Today, if blood pressure is your concern, buy a home monitor rather than a supplement and take readings across a week. That single step tells you more than any product in this category can. Then take those numbers to a doctor, and treat beetroot as something that might help at the edges rather than the thing doing the work.
Not one of Goli’s ten billion gummies has ever been sold as a treatment for anything, and this is a keyword where that distinction earns its keep.
References
- Grönroos R, Eggertsen R, Bernhardsson S, Praetorius Björk M. 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).
- Bahadoran Z, Mirmiran P, Kabir A, Azizi F, Ghasemi A. The Nitrate-Independent Blood Pressure-Lowering Effect of Beetroot Juice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Advances in Nutrition (2017);8(6):830-838, doi 10.3945/an.117.016717. Erratum in Advances in Nutrition (2018);9(3):274.
- A Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Crossover Study of the Effect of Beetroot Juice Containing Dietary Nitrate on Aortic and Brachial Blood Pressure Over 24 h. Frontiers in Nutrition (2019).
- Understanding Blood Pressure Readings. American Heart Association.
- High Blood Pressure (Hypertension). National Health Service.
- Nitric Oxide: What It Is and What It Does. Cleveland Clinic.
- Kapil V, Khambata RS, Robertson A, Caulfield MJ, Ahluwalia A. Dietary Nitrate Provides Sustained Blood Pressure Lowering in Hypertensive Patients: A Randomized, Phase 2, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study. Hypertension (2015);65(2):320-327.
- FDA 101: Dietary Supplements. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
