Even though older people with high blood pressure are already taking medicine for it, their bodies can still turn nitrates from food (like beets or spinach) into useful compounds — but this doesn’t seem to lower their blood pressure or improve their blood vessels over time.

Eating foods with nitrate and nitrite, like leafy greens and cured meats, might help lower blood pressure, protect your heart when blood flow is interrupted, improve blood vessel function, prevent blood clots, help your cells make energy better, and improve signs of metabolic syndrome—even when your body doesn’t have enough oxygen.

Taking nitrate-rich supplements every day can boost certain chemicals in the blood of people with high blood pressure, which may explain why their blood pressure goes down.

Eating vegetables high in natural nitrates might help lower your blood pressure and make your blood vessels more flexible, because your body turns those nitrates into a substance that helps relax your blood vessels and reduce swelling.

Taking nitrate-rich supplements every day can lower blood pressure just as much in people who aren't on blood pressure meds as in those who are—meaning it might help even more on top of their regular medicine.

If you eat a little more nitrate-rich food like spinach or beets each day, the amount of nitrate in your blood goes up by a predictable amount, which might help your heart by turning that nitrate into a substance that relaxes your blood vessels.