I like beets. Do you?

Back in school I was often told the lead pipes in Roman aqueducts likely played a key role in the fall of Roman. We know lead is a poison with negative long term effects on cognition.

The aqueducts were also responsible for Romes ability to proliferate and grow. Lead was both a blessing and a curse.

I wonder what future generations will say about our highly enriched and processed diets. Calories have never been cheaper and food is ubiquitous. However I believe our food is playing a huge role in our degraded health.

It’s not surprising that most studies looking at the consumption of unprocessed food, fresh fruit and vegetables show benefits to our health.

The challenge is how do we get this food in the hands of those who need it cheaply and without sacrificing the nutritional (and microbial) content.

I can't remember where (maybe here) that you shouldn't use mouthwash after working out because of the effects on your oral microbiome. That fact shocked me just like this article does because it was unintuitive that your oral microbiome could have such an impact on your physiology.

The effect may actually be a similar one because nitrates do sound familiar...

That's interesting. I had always assumed that the effect was due to vasodilation but perhaps not.

Isn't nitrates what makes processed meats so unhealthy? Does this mean the bacon that claims to be cured with celery juice is actually on to something?

If you have trouble in bed, ask yourself if you use Listerine. It kills your mouth’s microbiome and lowers your Nitric Oxide production [0].

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31709856/

Beetroot juice lowers blood pressure because it has a high content of nitrates. So it lowers blood pressure through two different mechanisms, or does it boil down to nitrates alone?