Beetroot Supplements: The Nitrate That Isn't on the Label

What to buy

BulkSupplements Beet Root Extract is our pick. It is the only beet product we link on a public testing list (NSF/ANSI 173 and NSF Certified for Sport), and one capsule a day costs $0.06 at its own price. Its label states no nitrate.

BulkSupplements Beet Root Extract
Our pick · NSF/ANSI 173

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Want a label that prints its nitrate? Wonder Beet’s label says 2% nitrate, about 22 mg in two capsules, for $0.32 a day.

Wonder Beet Beet Root Capsules
2% nitrate on the label

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Where to go next

• Best beetroot supplement: the products we compared, ranked.
• Beetroot prices: cost per day by brand.

What beetroot does

Many trials gave beetroot juice, not capsules.

What trials found for each goal.

Goal	Evidence	What trials found
Blood pressure	Some, small effect	Reviews, mostly in healthy adults and mostly with juice, found the top number about 3.5 to 4.8 mmHg lower (Bahadoran 2017; Jackson 2018). In people with high blood pressure, one review found about 5 mmHg lower with low certainty; another found no drop.
Endurance exercise	Mixed, small effect	A 2025 summary of 20 reviews (180 studies) found people kept going longer, more at 370 mg of nitrate a day or more, with no clear gain in other measures; most of the reviews were low quality. The gain in oxygen uptake was not clear in highly trained athletes.
Strength	Mixed, very small	A 2025 summary found a very small gain overall and a small one in athletes (Tian 2025). A trial of up to 24 mmol in 18 trained men found no change in squats, bench press or jumps.

How much nitrate trials used

Trials count nitrate in millimoles (mmol); 1 mmol is 62 mg. Reviews put the useful range at about 6 to 13 mmol a day (370 to 800 mg), and effects were most consistent after at least 3 days in a row (Qin 2026).

Why the label does not tell you the dose

The big number on the front is beet root or extract weight, not nitrate, so you cannot price the nitrate. Of the 17 labels we read, most print only the weight of beet root or extract. Wonder Beet prints 2% nitrate (about 22 mg a day); one brand we no longer link printed 4% (about 24 mg). A lab test of 50 beetroot supplements found the strongest gave 169 mg a day (Brzezińska-Rojek 2023).

Is beetroot safe?

A 4-week trial of daily beetroot juice in people with high blood pressure reported it was well tolerated (Kapil 2015). A few things to know:

• Pink or red urine or stool, called beeturia, happens in about 14% of people; it is the beet pigment (Eastwood 1995).
• Drinking a lot of beetroot juice can push nitrate above the acceptable daily intake, and research on harms is limited (Zamani 2021).
• A lab test of 37 beetroot supplements found cadmium in 5 of them, at 4% to 134% of the monthly tolerable intake (Brzezińska-Rojek 2024). That is one reason we put testing first.
• Blood pressure medicine: ask your doctor before adding beetroot, and do not stop a medicine.
• Pregnant or breastfeeding: ask your doctor first.

Questions people ask

Does mouthwash matter?

It can. Antibacterial mouthwash cut the step where mouth bacteria turn nitrate into nitrite, and raised blood pressure by 2.3 mmHg in 15 people with treated high blood pressure (Bondonno 2015).

Sources

1. Lundberg JO, et al. “The nitrate-nitrite-nitric oxide pathway in physiology and therapeutics.” Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2008. PubMed 18167491
2. Poon ET, et al. “Dietary Nitrate Supplementation and Exercise Performance: An Umbrella Review of 20 Published Systematic Reviews with Meta-analyses.” Sports Med. 2025. PubMed 40085422
3. Qin G, et al. “Effects of beetroot juice supplementation on maximal oxygen uptake during aerobic exercise: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Front Nutr. 2026. PubMed 42523624
4. Bahadoran Z, et al. “The Nitrate-Independent Blood Pressure-Lowering Effect of Beetroot Juice: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Adv Nutr. 2017. PubMed 29141968
5. Jackson JK, et al. “The role of inorganic nitrate and nitrite in cardiovascular disease risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis of human evidence.” Nutr Rev. 2018. PubMed 29506204
6. Grönroos R, et al. “Effects of beetroot juice on blood pressure in hypertension according to European Society of Hypertension Guidelines: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2024. PubMed 39069465
7. Zhang Y, et al. “Regulatory effect of dietary nitrate on blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” Food Funct. 2023. PubMed 36740972
8. Kapil V, et al. “Dietary nitrate provides sustained blood pressure lowering in hypertensive patients: a randomized, phase 2, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.” Hypertension. 2015. PubMed 25421976
9. Tian C, et al. “Effects of Beetroot Juice on Physical Performance in Professional Athletes and Healthy Individuals: An Umbrella Review.” Nutrients. 2025. PubMed 40573069
10. Tan R, et al. “The effect of dietary nitrate supplementation on resistance exercise performance: A dose-response investigation.” Eur J Appl Physiol. 2025. PubMed 40274664
11. Brzezińska-Rojek J, et al. “Antioxidant Capacity, Nitrite and Nitrate Content in Beetroot-Based Dietary Supplements.” Foods. 2023. PubMed 36900534
12. Brzezińska-Rojek J, et al. “Evaluation of the Safety and Potential Benefits of Beetroot-Based Dietary Supplements According to Their Elemental Composition.” Biol Trace Elem Res. 2024. PubMed 37804447
13. Bondonno CP, et al. “Antibacterial mouthwash blunts oral nitrate reduction and increases blood pressure in treated hypertensive men and women.” Am J Hypertens. 2015. PubMed 25359409
14. Eastwood MA, Nyhlin H. “Beeturia and colonic oxalic acid.” QJM. 1995. PubMed 7493168
15. Zamani H, et al. “The benefits and risks of beetroot juice consumption: a systematic review.” Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2021. PubMed 32292042