Beetroot juice held aerobic fitness steady through 10 days of Ramadan fasting
Fasting adults who took no supplement lost measurable aerobic capacity over 10 days of Ramadan, while those drinking nitrate-rich beetroot juice twice a day held onto theirs, in a small randomised trial of 21 healthy adults. Peak power output moved the same way, even though both groups reported moving less and sleeping worse as the fast went on.
For you: If you fast for Ramadan and care about your cardio fitness, early evidence that dietary nitrate, here as beetroot juice, may help hold the line, though one small trial is far from settled.
What it shows: Promising but very small: 21 healthy adults split into groups of 10 and 11, and the comparison group took nothing rather than a placebo drink, so belief in the beetroot could explain part of the gap. Ten days also says little about a full month of fasting.RCT · Exp Physiol