Women with high blood pressure have much less of the bacteria Veillonella in their mouths compared to women with normal blood pressure.

People with more oral bacteria that convert nitrates to nitrites tend to have lower blood pressure, but only if they don't already have high blood pressure.

The link between oral bacteria that convert nitrates to nitrites and blood pressure is stronger in people who don't have high blood pressure already.

Researchers studied 55 women (some pregnant, some not, some with high blood pressure, some without) to see how their mouth bacteria and nitrate-processing ability relate to blood pressure changes after eating nitrate-rich food.

Women with high blood pressure tend to have slightly lower mouth bacteria activity for converting nitrate to nitrite compared to women with normal blood pressure, though this difference isn't quite statistically significant.

Researchers wanted to see if differences in mouth bacteria and nitrate-processing ability explain why some people's blood pressure goes down more than others after eating nitrate-rich food.