Eating a little more nitrate-rich food each day—like spinach or beets—might help keep your arteries more flexible as you age, making your blood flow a bit easier.

Eating more nitrate-rich vegetables for 16 weeks didn’t make arteries stiffer or more flexible in people with early high blood pressure—whether they ate a lot or just a little.

Taking nitrate-rich supplements every day for a month can help people with high blood pressure have healthier blood vessels—making them more flexible and better at opening up to let blood flow smoothly.

When women take nitrate supplements, their blood vessels become more flexible, but men don’t see the same change—so nitrate might help women’s blood vessels more than men’s.

Eating a little more nitrate-rich food each day—like spinach or beets—might help your arteries bounce back better from heartbeats, lowering the pressure in your main arteries and making your heart work a bit less hard.

Eating more nitrate-rich vegetables for 16 weeks doesn’t lower blood pressure or make arteries stiffer in people with early high blood pressure—so it doesn’t help these heart health markers in the short term.