Drinking a particular vegetable juice on a daily basis could help bring down your cholesterol and reduce your risk of getting a heart condition.

Beetroot juice is a good source of vitamin C and is rich in soluble fibre and antioxidants, and helps maintain sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, reports el Economista.

Many people cook it and have it as part of a meal but you can enjoy its full advantages by having it raw, such as in a smoothie.

Its high fibre content and antioxidant compounds make it ideal for lowering cholesterol, and these compounds are thought to help break down fat.

Beetroot can help fight against free radicals, which are unstable atoms that can damage cells and lead to illness.

The drink further strengthens the immune system and helps control blood sugar levels. It also increases athletic performance by boosting blood flow to the muscles.

Having a regular glass of beetroot juice can reduce inflammation in blood vessels that are known to be increased among those with coronary heart disease, according to research presented to the British Cardiovascular Society.

Researchers look at the effects of having daily beetroot juice high in organic nitrate and if this would up a person’s levels of nitric oxide, so helping reduce inflation.

Nitric oxide is vital for your health, as it regulates blood pressure and has anti-inflammatory effects. People with heart and circulatory conditions typically produce less of it.

The research studied 114 healthy volunteers who drank 104ml of beetroot juice every morning for seven days, with half drinking nitrate-rich beetroot juice while the others had low nitrate juice.

A total of 78 of the volunteers were given a typhoid vaccine to temporarily increase inflammation in their blood vessels while 36 were given a cream to create a small blister on their skin, to create localised inflammation.

The group with the typhoid vaccine had higher levels of markers of nitrous oxide in their blood, urine and saliva compared to those who consumed low nitrate juice.

They also had lower circulating levels of a type of white blood cell known as inflammatory monocyte, and the monocytes that remained in their blood became more anti-inflammatory.

Those drinking the high nitrate juice also seemed to have an improved function of the endothelium, the single layer of cells that line the inside of blood vessels.

The blisters healed more quickly for the group that drank the nitrate-rich beetroot juice. Researchers believe that the increased levels of nitric oxide helped to speed up how quickly the volunteers were able to recover from inflammation.

Dr Asad Shabbir, clinical research fellow at Queen Mary University of London, was involved this research. He said: “Inflammation is vital to protect the body from injury and infection.

“However, in people with coronary heart disease persistent inflammation can exacerbate the furring of the arteries, making their condition worse and increasing their risk of a heart attack.

“Our research suggests that a daily glass of beetroot juice could be one way to get inorganic nitrate into our diet to help to interrupt harmful inflammation.”