Rugby League coach Des Hasler famously made his players drink beetroot juice before a game.
The first thing you may think is “yuk” – so the question is, why?
The answer is that it contains nitrates, and nitrates have a very important role to play in your body. To understand this role, we turn to the waste management industry, believe it or not.
One of the most popular methods of remediating organic waste is bioremediation. The way it works is you allow indigenous bacteria to biodegrade your organic wastes and turn it all into carbon dioxide.
Now, if we look at the formula for carbon dioxide, CO2, we notice that it contains oxygen (that’s the O2 part). So that means that for biodegradation to take place, oxygen is required. And in fact if we look at a biological waste treatment plant (for example a domestic sewage facility) you will would see big ponds or tanks with huge air blowers in them, blasting air through the water in millions of tiny bubbles.
Generally, these plants have some sort of way of keeping track of the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, as if it falls below a certain level, the bacteria shuts down, and the whole process grinds to a halt.
If this happens, it can be quite serious, as bacterial processes are not as fast as chemical processes, and even if you blast air into it, it can take a while for the level of dissolved oxygen to build up a gain.
In this circumstance, the plant is treated like a sick patient, and first aid is required. And first aid for a biological treatment plant is nitrates.
The chemical formula for nitrate is NO3– . You will notice that it contains three oxygen atoms. This can be used by aerobic bacteria as a source of oxygen until level of dissolved oxygen from the air builds up a gain.
And in fact this explains the difference between two similar sounding words – anaerobic and anoxic. Anaerobic means no dissolved oxygen, whereas anoxic means no dissolved oxygen and no source of oxygen (nitrates or sulphates)
But back to beetroot juice.
When we breathe the oxygen is transferred from our lungs by haemoglobin to our muscles where it is used. Of course athletes who are exerting themselves can find themselves short of breath, and this of course limits their performance. But if they have nitrates in their blood, the haemoglobin could, at a pinch, use this oxygen to keep the supply of oxygen up to be muscles.
So, it works. Des Hasler’s Bulldogs can go out and play as hard as anyone, but when the going gets tough, the haemoglobin in their blood can call on extra reserves of oxygen, contained in the nitrates, and this can give them the edge over thier opponents.
So it works!
But I don’t anticipate trying beetroot juice any time soon
‘lk