You don’t need to go to extremes to have good health. You certainly increase the odds of that happening, however, if you pay attention to those who do and learn from them.

You’ll probably never run an ultramarathon or race at a shorter distance to the point of absolute exhaustion, but there are zealots who do so regularly. So research is done to help these diehards do better.

Such research has found nitric oxide widens blood vessels. Widened blood vessels allow for increased blood flow, making it easier for the muscle cells to produce energy, while also reducing blood pressure. Nitric oxide also decreases the amount of oxygen needed by the muscles, so exercise at any intensity level feels easier.

This combination of benefits improves exercise performance - regardless of the type you do or how hard you normally do it. A study performed at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri and published in the April 2012 issue of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics supports this claim.

Researchers there recruited 11 average runners to run two 5-kilometer treadmill races. About one hour before each effort, the subjects ate either 7 ounces of cooked red beets or 7 ounces of cranberry relish.

They were given no reason for why they were eating either and certainly had no knowledge that 7 ounces of baked red beets contain nitrate, a compound found in many vegetables and some fruits that your body transforms into the nitric oxide, or that the cranberry relish contained none.

When the runners ate the cooked red beets before the 5-k treadmill race, they finished, on average, 41 seconds faster. The researchers concluded the 200 milligrams of nitric oxide created from 500 milligrams of nitrate in the red beets lead to the “acutely” improved the race times.

This study not only made news, but it also led supplement makers to flood the market with powders and drinks featuring red beets. For example, NuTherapy currently offers an 11.6-ounce tub of Power Beets Superfood Juice Powder through W.B. Mason for $49.99.

If you think that’s a bit pricey, join the club.

And while you’re at it, why not join another one? A group of eaters who have no need for red beet potions because their bodies make more than enough nitric oxide because they eat healthy foods high in nitrate.

If you would do as I do, for instance, and eat a family-sized salad containing butter leaf lettuce, arugula, and spinach yourself each day, you’d get far more nitrate than what’s found in the 7 ounces of cooked red beets used in the 2012 study.

And by doing so, you’d get something more essential than enhanced exercise performance. You’d enhance the performance, so to speak, of your heart.

But if the thought of eating that much salad every day of the week brings you down, here’s something to pick you up. One cup of raw or a half cup of cooked leafy green vegetables daily is enough to help your heart, according to a recent study released by Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, Australia and covered in a Medical News Today article.

Through analyzing data first accrued through the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study - a 23-year endeavor that used food surveys from more than 56,000 residents of Denmark - lead author Dr. Catherine Bondonno and her team discovered those eating the aforementioned amounts of leafy greens daily had a lower risk of heart attack, stroke, and heart failure. This prompted Bondonno to declare “people may be able to significantly reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease” simply by doing the same.

While the Medical News Today article highlights spinach, lettuce, arugula, Chinese cabbage, parsley, radishes, fennel, and beet as the best foods to consume to do so, there are other vegetables that contain significant amounts of nitrate. Rhubarb, spring greens, beet greens, oak leaf, Swiss chard, bok choy, mustard greens, carrots, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, and onions are some of the veggies you may already eat that make MorningSteel.com’s top 25 list of foods high in nitrates.

While broader in scope, a review of the Reasons for Geographical and Racial Differences in Stroke study first released at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in 2017, also suggests a correlation between the consumption of leafy green vegetables and the avoidance of heart problems.

The original study took place between 2003 and 2007 and assessed the diets of more than 15,000 American adults 45 years of age or older who had no previous heart disease. Health evaluations were done until 2013. The subsequent follow-up of the information accrued, performed by a team at the Icahn School of Medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and led by study author Dr. Kyla Lara, placed each subject’s diet into one of five categories.

The subjects who followed a diet construed as plant-based and featuring leafy greens, fruits, beans, whole grains, and fish were the ones least likely to develop heart failure during the time they were tracked.