Sugary Gum With Beetroot Juice Lowers Blood Pressure
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- King's College London researchers found that chewing sugary gum after beetroot juice lowered saliva pH by 1.4 points compared with sugar-free gum, accelerating the oral bacterial conversion of dietary nitrate into nitrite.
- The sugar-containing Hubba Bubba group showed a 45% rise in saliva nitrite and a 25% increase in nitrite circulating in the bloodstream relative to the Wrigley's Extra sugar-free gum group.
- Participants chewing sugary gum saw systolic blood pressure fall nearly 3 mmHg and diastolic drop almost 2 mmHg compared with the sugar-free gum arm of the crossover study.
- Lead researcher Dr. Andrew Webb stressed the effects lasted only several hours and warned that habitual sugary-gum use carries well-known dental and cardiometabolic risks, ruling out any clinical recommendation.
- Webb suggested the classic culinary pattern of following nitrate-rich salad or vegetables with a sweet dessert may temporarily amplify blood pressure-lowering and exercise-enhancing effects.
- Co-author Dr. Charlotte Mills of the University of Reading said the priority now is developing tooth-friendly, metabolically sound alternatives that replicate the acidic-saliva nitrite boost.
- The team will run a larger follow-up study in athletes — who already use dietary nitrate as a performance supplement — to test effects on nitrate metabolism, blood pressure, and exercise output.
- The findings were published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology with DOI 10.1002/bcp.70640.
Why it matters: Athletes who already use beetroot juice as a legal performance supplement could meaningfully boost its nitrate-to-nitrite conversion by chewing gum during consumption — but the dental trade-off means the real downstream opportunity is a sugar-free, tooth-friendly formulation engineered to produce the same acidic-saliva effect.
