Beetroot juice may help stave off memory loss, small study hints

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

Inclusion Criteria: * Formal diagnosis of cerebral small vessel disease (grades 1 to 3 in the Age-Related White Matter Changes Scale as assessed by Computerized Tomography or Magnetic Ressonance Imaging - MRI) and patients at high risk for cerebral small vessel disease with diabetes mellitus; * Subject has capacity and is capable of giving written informed consent; * Subject is able to read, comprehend and record information written in Portuguese. Exclusion Criteria: * Vascular diseases other than cerebral Small Vessel Disease (cSVD); * Stroke event less than 6 months ago; * Unsuitable for MRI scanning because of presence of any standard MRI contraindication (e.g presence of a cardiac pacemaker, other medical implants or devices, or the presence of ferromagnetic metal foreign bodies); * Needle phobia; * Inability or intolerance to dietary polyphenol adjustment; * Current smoker; * Alcohol abuse, drug abuse or use of drugs affecting cognitive assessment, such as sedatives, hypnotics, nootropic drugs, cholinergic drugs; * Use of medications that may be contraindicated or interact with the high nitrate diet, such as nitroglycerin or nitrate preparations used for angina, or phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, including sildenafil (Viagral); * Patients previously diagnosed with dementia; * Presence of congenital mental retardation and severe neurological and psychiatric diseases; * Illiterate or severe visual or hearing impairment that may prevent patients from cooperating with cognitive assessment; * Relevant depression or other unrelated serious mental illness; * Severe cardiac, pulmonary, renal or hepatic insufficiency; * Patients who have participated in other interventional clinical studies within the last 3 months, or are participating in other interventional clinical studies.