"Best Brain Foods: Greens and Beets Put to the Test"
The production in our brain of nitric oxide—the open sesame molecule
that dilates our blood vessels and is boosted by the consumption of
nitrate-rich vegetables—and the role of nitric oxide in the
control of nerve functioning
has been comprehensively investigated in lab animals.
However, little evidence on its role in human brain function existed...
until it was put to the test.
Feed people lots of green leafy vegetables
with some beet juice to boot,
and then measure cerebral blood flow.
See that spot there with improved flow?
That’s a critical brain area known to be involved in executive functioning.
OK, but improved blood flow doesn’t necessarily translate
into improved cognitive function.
For example, feed people tart cherries, and despite some indication of
improved blood flow, this didn’t appear to manifest
as improved cognitive performance.
And indeed, some of the initial studies were disappointing.
Give people over a cup of cooked spinach and
no immediate boost in the ability to carry out simple tasks,
but that may be because the tests weren’t hard enough.
Give people a similar battery of simple tasks after consuming
cocoa and no significant effect.
But put people through a more demanding set of tasks,
and you can see acute improvements in cognitive performance
after cocoa consumption.
The tasks they’re talking about is like counting backwards
in 3’s for minutes at a time.
What if you tried doing that same thing after drinking
two cups of organic beet juice, which has about the same amount
of nitrate as two cups of cooked arugula?
Significantly improved performance, in terms of more correct answers
on the sustained subtraction task.
These results suggest that a single dose
of nitrate-rich vegetables can modify brain function,
and that this is likely to be as a result
of increased nitric oxide synthesis.
OK, but how do we know it’s the nitrate?
Beets are packed with all sorts of phytonutrients
like the betalain red pigment.
One way to tease it out would be to come up
with some kind of nitrate- depleted beet juice—
has all the other stuff in beets, but just missing the nitrate—
to see if that works just as well, and that’s exactly what researchers did.
They developed a nitrate- depleted beetroot juice placebo.
And compared to that, within two weeks of supplementation
with the real stuff this group of diabetics
got a significant improvement in reaction time.
Now we’re just talking 13 milliseconds here,
but other interventions like balance training
that only increased reaction time like 7 milliseconds
were associated with significantly lower fall risk.
And of course, in athletes, those fractions of a second
can sometimes make a difference.
At very high exercise intensities, cognitive task performance deteriorates,
with a pronounced detrimental effect on reaction time,
and that may be just when you need it the most.
Like you're playing football or something
and need to make rapid appropriate decisions
while simultaneously going all out.
And once again, beets to the rescue, significantly reducing reaction time;
so, not only improving physical performance
but mental performance as well.
Yeah, but can it improve the structure of your brain?
Things like cognitive training and aerobic exercise
can actually affect the structure of the human brain.
There’s something called neuroplasticity,
where your brain can adapt, changing its configuration
as you like learn to play piano or something.
We used to think only younger brains could do this,
but now we know it can occur in the aging brain as well.
Can’t “beet” that—or can you?
We didn't know…
until now.
Here’s your brain before and after
a six-week exercise program, measuring connectivity
between various parts of your brain that control movement.
No big change.
But, what about the same amount of exercise before…
and after drinking some beet juice too?
Big difference.
The exercise plus beetroot juice group
developed brain networks that more closely resembled
those of younger adults, showing the potential enhanced
neuroplasticity conferred by combining
exercise and nitrate-rich vegetables.