According to a preliminary study, adding tiny amounts of beetroot or dietary nitrate to salty food products might help prevent high blood pressure.  He current findings in animals may not translate to humans, but researchers of the new study –released in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension– hope to find a new tool to help battle the epidemic of high-salt diets, a major risk factor for hypertension.

Globally, most people consume about twice the recommended level of salt, according to the World Health Organization. High consumption of sodium and not enough potassium can contribute to high blood pressure and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Medical experts long have encouraged people not only to eat less salt but to eat more potassium-rich fruits and vegetables, which lessen the effects of sodium on cardiovascular health.

"Weve had these educational campaigns for years, but people arent eating more potassium, and the average salt intake in the US population in hypertensive people has actually increased," said Dr Theodore W. Kurtz, the studys lead author and a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "We need to come up with new ways of preventing salt-induced hypertension."

For the study, salt-sensitive rats were given salt along with small amounts of beetroot juice or dietary nitrate, which is found in root and leafy vegetables such as spinach, lettuce and celery. Researchers found that both the juice and the nitrate supplement were more than 100 times more potent than potassium in protecting rats against salt-induced increases in blood pressure.

If those results could be replicated in humans, it could provide a method for reducing salt-induced high blood pressure simply by adding a nitrate concentrate to certain salty foods, Kurtz said.

"Were suggesting that manufacturers of products laden with salt – soy sauce, hot sauce and barbecue sauce – could add a very small amount of an extract from a nitrate-rich vegetable, and this would protect against salt-induced hypertension without reducing the salt or altering the taste of the product," said Kurtz, who is an advisor, board member and stockholder of a company that holds patents for nitrate-rich vegetable extracts.