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Dietary nitrate in man: friend or foe?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2007

G. M. McKnight ,
C. W. Duncan ,
C. Leifert  and
M. H. Golden
G. M. McKnight
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Polwarth Building, Medical School, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, UK
C. W. Duncan
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Polwarth Building, Medical School, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, UK Boyd Orr Research Centre Aberdeen Research Consortium, UK
C. Leifert
Affiliation:
Department of Soil Science, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB25 1FX, UK
M. H. Golden*
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Polwarth Building, Medical School, University of Aberdeen, Foresterhill, Aberdeen AB25 2ZD, UK Boyd Orr Research Centre Aberdeen Research Consortium, UK
*
†Corresponding author: Professor Michael Golden, fax +(0)1224 699884, email [email protected]*
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Abstract

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Based on the premise that dietary nitrate is detrimental to human health, increasingly stringent regulations are being instituted to lower nitrate levels in food and water. Not only does this pose a financial challenge to water boards and a threat to vegetable production in Northern Europe, but also may be eliminating an important non-immune mechanism for host defence. Until recently nitrate was perceived as a purely harmful dietary component which causes infantile methaemoglobinaemia, carcinogenesis and possibly even teratogenesis. Epidemiological studies have failed to substantiate this. It has been shown that dietary nitrate undergoes enterosalivary circulation. It is recirculated in the blood, concentrated by the salivary glands, secreted in the saliva and reduced to nitrite by facultative Gram-positive anaerobes (Staphylococcus sciuri and S. intermedius) on the tongue. Salivary nitrite is swallowed into the acidic stomach where it is reduced to large quantities of NO and other oxides of N and, conceivably, also contributes to the formation of systemic S-nitrosothiols. NO and solutions of acidified nitrite, mimicking gastric conditions, have been shown to have antimicrobial activity against a wide range of organisms. In particular, acidified nitrite is bactericidal for a variety of gastrointestinal pathogens such as Yersinia and Salmonella. NO is known to have vasodilator properties and to modulate platelet function, as are S-nitrosothiols. Thus, nitrate in the diet, which determines reactive nitrogen oxide species production in the stomach (McKnight et al. 1997), is emerging as an effective host defence against gastrointestinal pathogens, as a modulator of platelet activity and possibly even of gastrointestinal motility and microcirculation. Therefore dietary nitrate may have an important therapeutic role to play, not least in the immunocompromised and in refugees who are at particular risk of contracting gastroenteritides.

Keywords

NitrateNitriteNitric oxideVegetables
Type
Review article
Information
British Journal of Nutrition , Volume 81 , Issue 5 , May 1999 , pp. 349 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 1999

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