Nitrate boosts efficiency of mitochondria

February 4, 2011

2. February 2011 04:37

The spinach-eating cartoon character Popeye has much to teach us, new research

from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet shows. The muscles'

cellular power plants - the mitochondria - are boosted by nitrate, a substance

found in abundance in vegetables such as lettuce, spinach and beetroot.

For half a century, inorganic nitrate has been associated with negative health

effects, but more recently, evidence of the contrary has mounted. In the 1990s,

a research group at Karolinska Institutet demonstrated how the body can convert

nitrate to NO, a molecule involved in many important bodily functions, such as

blood pressure regulation, the immune defence and cell metabolism.

In this new study, the same team had healthy people take nitrate equivalent to

200-300g of spinach or lettuce for three days, after which they were given a

cycling task to perform. The researchers then analysed samples from their thigh

muscles and compared them with similar samples from the same subjects when they

had taken a placebo instead. After nitrate ingestion, a significant improvement

was seen in the efficiency of the mitochondria, which consumed less oxygen and

produced more of the energy-rich substance ATP per consumed oxygen molecule.

" The mitochondria play a key role in cellular metabolism " , says Professor Eddie

Weitzberg, who is heading the study with Professor Jon Lundberg. " Improved

mitochondrial function probably has many positive effects on the body, and could

explain some of the health benefits of vegetables. "

The results, which are published in Cell Metabolism, are of sports-physiological

interest, as they show that nitrate reduces oxygen consumption during physical

exercise; however, they are also of potential significance to diseases involving

mitochondrial dysfunction, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The group has also recently shown that nitrate reduces the blood pressure of

healthy individuals and that in laboratory animals it counteracts components of

the metabolic syndrome, a pre-stage of diabetes. Other scientists have

demonstrated protective effects of nitrate and nitrite in animal models against

heart attack and stroke.

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