Affiliate disclosure: this post contains affiliate links, including to the beetroot shot I’m using in this trial and the Hilo monitor I measure with. I bought both with my own money. All views are my own.
It was about 3am and I couldn’t sleep, which is not unusual. What was unusual was the thing I’d ended up reading. I’m not going to name it — naming it hands it search traffic — but it prompted me to design a proper beetroot blood pressure experiment of my own. Here’s why, and exactly what I’m testing.
By the time I got to the part where she explained why cheap beetroot powder doesn’t work but this particular brand does, I was fairly sure I wasn’t reading a doctor’s confession. I was reading an advertisement.
How I know it’s an advertisement (and why I still ran a beetroot blood pressure experiment)
I’m not going to name the brand or the post. Naming it hands it search traffic, and the pattern matters more than this particular example anyway.
A real doctor writing about their own health doesn’t funnel you to a checkout page via a /pages/listicle URL. Real clinical advice doesn’t come with manufactured scarcity or a money-back guarantee designed to lower your purchase anxiety. The emotional hooks in that post, the dead mother, the kitchen counter tears, the sudden revelation, are lifted almost verbatim from a template used across thousands of supplement advertorials. The character changes. The story doesn’t.
None of which means the underlying science is wrong. That’s the clever part. The post gets one thing right: most beetroot powders and gummies are under-dosed on nitrate, often to the point of being essentially useless. That true fact is then used to sell a fake solution. The implicit argument is that you need this specific brand, not the cheaper validated alternative that the actual research used.
The genuinely dangerous bit, buried under the emotional story, is the suggestion that you might manage your blood pressure without medication.
What the science actually says
The research on dietary nitrate and blood pressure is real. It’s not fringe. A 2013 Cochrane review covering 16 randomised controlled trials found a mean reduction in systolic BP of around 4-5 mmHg. A 2022 meta-analysis covering 43 trials found consistent reductions in the 3-5 mmHg range. I’ve written up the full evidence summary separately if you want the detail on studies, doses, and honest limitations.
The mechanism is well understood. Dietary nitrate gets converted by bacteria in your mouth to nitrite, then in the stomach and bloodstream to nitric oxide. Nitric oxide relaxes and widens blood vessels, reducing peripheral resistance. This isn’t speculative. It’s the same mechanism as glyceryl trinitrate (GTN spray), which has been used in cardiology for over a century.
The dose matters. The 400mg threshold used in most of the positive trials is the number to hit. You can get there from food: around 200-250g of spinach, a large bunch of rocket, or two medium beetroots. Or from a standardised supplement shot designed to hit that threshold reliably every time.
The advertorial brand doesn’t disclose its nitrate content. The Beet It Sport Nitrate 400 shot I’m using does: 400mg per 70ml shot, Informed-Sport certified, used in a substantial chunk of the academic research on this subject.
My situation
I’m 55. I’ve had medicated hypertension since 2005, managed with lercanidipine and ramipril. My Hilo continuous monitor (full review here) gives me a daytime mean of 133/85 across 400 readings from June 2026. That’s borderline Stage 1 under current UK guidelines, above where I’d like to be, and trending in a direction I’ve been watching closely since a knee injury knocked out most of my training last autumn. I wrote about the connection between that injury and my blood pressure numbers here, if you want the longer story.
I’m not looking for an alternative to medication. I’m looking for an adjunct that might help, if the science is real.
Why I’m writing this before I start
Because I know how easy it is to fool yourself. You try something, your numbers improve, you conclude it worked. Maybe it did. Maybe you happened to sleep better that week, or do more exercise, or drink less. You’ll never know, because you didn’t decide in advance what “worked” meant.
So I’ve pre-registered the trial. The full protocol, including the hypothesis, the baseline numbers, the analysis plan, and exactly what I’ll count as a result, is published at the pre-registration page before Day 1. I can’t move the goalposts once I’ve seen the data. If I change anything, I’ll say so explicitly.
I’m using a month’s supply of Beet It, one shot every morning. I bought it with my own money. I have no connection to James White Drinks.
Why I probably still won’t be able to tell you if it worked
Here’s the honest problem, and it’s the same problem that makes the cardiologist’s testimonial worthless.
During these 30 days I’m also rebuilding aerobic fitness after that knee injury. More exercise lowers blood pressure. I’m trying to sleep longer than my current short average. Better sleep lowers blood pressure. My body composition is actively changing. All of these things independently affect BP, and all of them are happening at the same time as the beetroot.
Even with 13 months of baseline data, a pre-registered protocol, and a validated measurement device, I will probably not be able to cleanly say the beetroot caused whatever I observe. I might see a signal consistent with the hypothesis. I might not. But I won’t be able to say with any confidence that the beetroot specifically did it.
This is the actual point. If I, with all of this infrastructure, can’t establish causation, then a stranger on the internet with a before-and-after photo and a checkout link definitely can’t. The cardiologist story is not evidence. My experiment is barely evidence. The difference is that I’m telling you that upfront.
What to do about your blood pressure in the meantime
Talk to your GP. That’s not a liability disclaimer. It’s the correct advice. Dietary nitrate is an adjunct at best. At borderline Stage 1, the right first move is a clinical conversation, not a supplement.
A few things worth knowing if you’re considering this yourself. If you’re on antihypertensive medication, dietary nitrate could have an additive effect on blood pressure, so tell your GP before you start. If you take any medication containing nitrates, whether for erectile dysfunction or a heart condition, sildenafil, tadalafil, isosorbide mononitrate, GTN spray, do not combine them with dietary nitrate. The combination can cause a dangerous drop in blood pressure. And beetroot turns urine and sometimes stools pink or red. It’s harmless. But it will alarm you the first time if nobody warned you.
What happens next
Results post around 24 July, covering the full 30 days. Post-washout update around 7 August. If it does nothing, I’ll say so. If the confounders make the result unreadable, I’ll say that too.
This post is not medical advice. I am a layperson experimenting on myself.
I publish the ones that fail too
The trial is finished and the answer was no change at all. You can read the full results here. I set the threshold before I started and published it either way. Subscribe and I will send you the next thing I test, working or not.
I’m Pete Harrison. I’m 55, I run a business, and I have a mild case of insomnia that means I spend a lot of time at 3am reading about gadgets, gear and ways to make life work better. Things I Learnt at 3am is where I write honestly about the things I’ve actually bought, tested and lived with. No fluff, no rehashing the spec sheet. Just the real verdict from someone who uses this stuff every day.
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