Interesting - 500ml is a lot of beetroot juice though!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8186947.stm

Just had half a pack of beetroot myself, how coincidental.

A far amount of sugar in beetroot too; esp that much juice.

So a possible NO2 enhancer by the sounds of it.

Alot of what is said doesn't make much sense to me but especially this:

After drinking beetroot juice the group was able to cycle for an average of 11.25 minutes - 92 seconds longer than when they were given the placebo.

This would translate into an approximate 2% reduction in the time taken to cover a set distance.

Given that this this had been previously said:

A University of Exeter team found nitrate contained in the vegetable leads to a reduction in oxygen uptake - making exercise less tiring.

First off they're assuming that the effects of exercise at various work rates is linear - it is not.

Mainly though a reduction in Oxygen uptake is all well and good for stamina but if you're absolutely gunning it and need as much Oxygen as possible then you'll end up in Oxygen debt that much sooner. Now we don't know what the work rate is for the test subjects but potentially reaching Oxygen debt sooner contradicts the first statement.

Yeah, I wondered about the intensity issue. Obviously a lot of the content of the study is lost in translation by the time it gets watered down for the BBC masses.