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I turned seventy last spring. My cardiovascular bloodwork has been in the ranges my doctor wants it in for twenty-three years, and I have been doing the small careful things to keep it there. I am seventy years old. My name is Eleanor. I have lived in the same small town in central Connecticut for forty-seven years. My husband, John, passed nine years ago — quietly, from a long illness — and I have been here in the house we bought together since 1979, doing the small daily work of being a widow in her seventies who is choosing, as much as she can, to live well. I have one daughter, Karen, who lives an hour from me in Hartford. I have two grandchildren in their twenties. I have a small circle of close friends I have known for thirty and forty years. I worked as a paralegal at the same small law firm in our town from 1981 until I retired at sixty-three. I have been retired for seven years and I have used those seven years carefully. I tell you all of this because the story I want to tell you is not a dramatic story. It is the story of a woman who has been paying patient, quiet attention to her cardiovascular wellness for twenty-three years, and who added one small thing to her mornings a little over a year ago that she wanted to mention to other women like her. I want to start with what I have been doing for the last twenty-three years, because the rest of this letter does not make sense without it. When I was forty-seven, my mother died. She was sixty-eight. She had a heart event in October and a second one in December and she was gone by February. My mother had spent most of her life, by her own admission, not paying very much attention to her cardiovascular wellness. She had eaten the way women of her generation ate, smoked from her twenties to her fifties, walked when she needed to and not when she didn't, and the cardiovascular medications she had been put on in her early sixties had been a too-late addition to a body that had been telling her things she had not been listening to. I sat with all of that for a long time after she died. When I was forty-seven and a half, I went to my own doctor and asked her, plainly, what a woman in her late forties could start doing to make sure she did not have my mother's last few months at sixty-eight. My doctor was a careful woman in her early forties who had been my doctor for about three years at that point. She told me there were no guarantees. She told me my mother's last few months had been the product of forty years of small daily choices, not of any one thing. She told me my own bloodwork was, at that moment, in good shape. My cholesterol was in range. My blood pressure was in range. My weight was where she wanted it. She told me that what she wanted me to do, starting at forty-seven and a half, was protect that. She gave me a short list. Walk most days. Eat the way a Mediterranean grandmother eats — vegetables, fish, less sugar, less salt, olive oil. Sleep seven or eight hours. Drink less alcohol. Manage stress. Come back every year and let her watch the numbers. She told me, in a sentence I have remembered for twenty-three years, that what I was doing was preventive cardiovascular care, and that the work of preventive cardiovascular care is mostly the work of small daily choices, over a long time, sustained. She told me she did not want to add a medication unless and until my numbers told her we needed to. I left that appointment and I have been doing those small daily things, more or less, for twenty-three years. I am going to tell you the next part briefly because it is the simplest part of this letter. My bloodwork has been in the ranges my doctor wants it in for twenty-three years. Not perfect. Not borderline. In the ranges. My cholesterol has been in range. My blood pressure has been in range. The other markers my doctor watches — the inflammatory markers, the kidney function, the rest of the panel — have been in the ranges she wants. I have not been put on a cardiovascular medication. My doctor has not, at any annual physical in twenty-three years, told me that we needed to add one. I am seventy years old, and as of my annual physical last October, my cardiovascular bloodwork is in the same ranges it was in at forty-seven. I am writing all of this down because I think it matters for the story. I am not a woman who has been managing a problem. I have been a woman doing preventive care, for a long time, alongside the careful supervision of a careful doctor. That is the platform from which everything else in this letter is told. About fifteen months ago, sometime in the summer of last year, I started thinking about whether there was anything I could add to my morning routine. Nothing was wrong. I was not feeling unwell. I had not had a scare. I was not on a new medication. My bloodwork was where it had been for twenty-two years at that point. The question was something else. I am seventy. I have been doing the same small daily things since I was forty-seven. My mother died at sixty-eight. I am two years past the age at which she died. When I sat with all of that — quietly, on my back porch, on a summer evening last July — I had the thought that has, in the months since, become the question this letter is about. The thought was: what one small thing could I add to the morning routine I have been doing for twenty-three years, that would support what I have been doing rather than replace any of it, and that would give my seventy-year-old body one more small useful thing to use in the course of an ordinary day? Not a fix. Not a replacement. Not a protocol. One small thing. I am the kind of woman who reads carefully. I worked as a paralegal for thirty-two years and I have spent my life learning how to evaluate written claims. I know what a careful research report looks like and I know what a marketing brochure looks like, and I have very little patience for the second one when it is trying to dress up as the first one. I read for a little over a month. In the evenings. At my kitchen table. With a cup of tea. I was looking for something I had not been finding in the supplement aisle of the drugstore for a long time, which is something whose claims I could read without rolling my eyes. What I kept coming back to, in the careful corner of the cardiovascular research conversation, was beetroot. I had heard about beetroot before. I had ignored it. The marketing on most of the bottles I had seen at the drugstore had been the kind of marketing I had spent thirty-two years professionally disqualifying. This time, I read it carefully. I read about the deep crimson pigment in beetroot. It is called betalain. It is the color that stains your cutting board for three days. I read about the dietary nitrates that are naturally present in the root. I read about the long, patient relationship the cardiovascular research community has had with this vegetable for decades. The language being used at the careful end of the conversation was supports healthy circulation, supports cardiovascular wellness, supports the body's own cellular energy, in people whose numbers are already in the range their doctors want them in. Not lowers anything. Not fixes anything. Not replaces what your doctor has you on. That was the language I had been looking for. I read about the cold-press, too. The betalain pigment is heat-sensitive. That is the chemistry of the molecule. Process beetroot the standard way, with heat, and you lose some of the compound to the heat. A small company called Rosabella decided to cold-press the root at low temperatures because they wanted as much of the compound as possible to make it from the field into the capsule. That is a slower way to make a supplement. It costs them more. I am seventy years old. After forty-something years of paying attention to how people and companies do things when no one is watching, I have learned that the small careful decisions tell you everything. The cold-press told me something about who was making the supplement. The other thing I liked was the simplicity. Two capsules in the morning with a glass of water. I have a quiet life. I do not want a protocol that requires its own shelf. Now I want to tell you about the call I made before I started taking it. I take no prescription medications. I have never been put on a cardiovascular medication. I am, at seventy, on nothing. I called my pharmacist anyway. Her name is Ruth. She is the pharmacist at the small independent pharmacy in our town. I have been buying my multivitamin from her for twenty-six years. I called her because, despite the fact that I am on no prescriptions, I am seventy years old and I have spent thirty-two years as a paralegal, which has taught me to ask questions before I do things, especially when the things involve my own body. I told her what I was thinking about adding. I told her the brand, the dose, the protocol. She pulled up my profile. She confirmed there was nothing on it that anything new would conflict with. She told me she had no concerns about adding it. She told me to come back to her if anything changed — if my doctor put me on a medication in the future, if I had any new symptoms, if I had any questions. She told me, before we got off the phone, that she wished more of her customers — and especially her older customers — made the call I had just made. I want to say something now, plainly. If you are reading this and you take any prescription medication — anything for blood pressure, anything for cholesterol, anything cardiovascular at all, anything you take regularly — please do not skip the call I am about to ask you to make. Call your pharmacist or your doctor's office before you add anything new to what you are already taking. The people who know your chart will tell you in two minutes whether what you are adding is safe. I called Ruth, and I was adding something to nothing. I would call her again tomorrow if I were adding anything else. The two minutes are worth every second. I was adding the supplement. I was not stopping anything. I was not adjusting anything. I had nothing to stop or adjust. I started on a Monday. The first two weeks I felt nothing in particular. I had read enough to know that bodies are different. Some people notice something within the first week or two. Some people take much longer. Some people don't notice much at all. I was prepared to land in any of those camps. I am not a woman who chases dramatic results. I have spent twenty-three years not chasing dramatic results in my cardiovascular care. I was not chasing them now. What I noticed, I noticed slowly, in pieces I did not connect at the time. The first thing I noticed, around week five, was my morning walk. I have been walking the same loop around my neighborhood for thirty-six years. Three quarters of a mile. Two small hills. For the last three or four years, I have been finishing that loop a little slower than I used to. Around week five, I caught myself coming up the small hill on the back stretch at a pace I had not held in a few years, and I realized halfway up that my breathing had not changed. I did not make a thing of it. I made a note. The second thing I noticed, in week seven or eight, was the afternoon. I have, for about two years, had a soft afternoon — about an hour, between two and three, when the day's energy thinned out. I had adjusted around it. I would read on the couch with my tea during that hour and pick the day back up at three. Sometime in week seven, I noticed I had skipped the soft afternoon for three days running. By week nine, I was using two o'clock to start a small project I had been thinking about — a memoir-style scrapbook I had been telling my daughter I would put together for the grandchildren — and I was working on it until four. The soft afternoon had not gone. But it had moved. And I had gotten a couple of hours of my own day back that I had been quietly giving up. The third thing I noticed was the cold. I live in central Connecticut. Winters here are long. I have, for the last several winters, been a little colder than I used to be — in my hands, in my feet, in the small hours when the house is cool. Sometime in November, four or five months into the supplement, I noticed I was wearing one fewer sweater layer than I had been wearing the winter before. That is the kind of small observation that means very little on its own and that I am cautious about reporting. But I noticed it, and I want to be honest about what I noticed. I want to be careful with what I am telling you, because I am writing this to women I do not know, and I do not want to overstate anything. I am not telling you Rosabella did any of those small things on its own. I have been walking. I have been eating the way my doctor told me to eat for twenty-three years. I have been sleeping seven or eight hours. I have been doing the small daily things she gave me a list of in 1999, more or less, every day. I added one small thing to that list a little over a year ago, kept everything else exactly the same, and a stretch of months followed that was qualitatively a little different from the year that had preceded it. That is the honest version. I would not give you a cleaner one. I went into my annual physical last October, about four months after I started. My doctor — the same one I have had since 1996 — ran the bloodwork. It was where she wanted it. In the same ranges it had been the year before, and the year before that, and twenty-one years before that. Not perfect. Not borderline. In the ranges. She asked me if anything had changed in my routine. I told her about the beetroot. She nodded the way she nods when she is pleased with a patient. She told me Ruth had already noted it in my pharmacy profile and that she had no concerns. She told me to keep doing what I was doing. She told me to come back in a year. If you are a woman over fifty who is paying patient, quiet attention to your cardiovascular wellness — whether you are on a medication or off one, whether your concern is general or specific, whether you have been doing this for twenty years or are just starting — I want to say a few things to you carefully. I do not know you. I do not know your bloodwork, your medications, your history, or what your doctor has said. Bodies are different. Some women notice something within the first week or two of adding something like this. Some women take much longer. Some women don't notice much at all. That is the honest version, and anyone offering you a cleaner one is selling you harder than I am. Here is how I think about Rosabella now, in the words I would actually use. It is something the body uses. The research community talks about it in the context of supporting healthy circulation, cardiovascular wellness, and the body's own cellular energy, in people whose numbers are already in the range their doctors want them in. It is not a fix for anything. It is not a substitute for anything your doctor has you on. It is one small thing you add to the long list of small daily things you are already doing for your cardiovascular wellness. Please call your pharmacist or your doctor's office before you add it. If you are on any cardiovascular medication, this is non-negotiable. If you are on no medication at all — the way I am — please call your pharmacist anyway. I did. I would do it again. The call is the most important two minutes of your engagement with any supplement. The people who know your chart will tell you in two minutes whether it makes sense for you. I am a seventy-year-old paralegal who retired seven years ago. I am not the person to ask. Your pharmacist or your doctor is. The company has a ninety-day satisfaction guarantee. If you are not satisfied — for any reason at all, including just changing your mind — they refund you. It is not tied to your bloodwork. It is not tied to anything you have to prove to anybody. If you are not satisfied, you are not satisfied. That is the whole policy. The beets are grown on a small operation that harvests on its own schedule. There are stretches when they are in stock and stretches when they are not. I mention that not to push you — please do not let anybody push you into a health decision — but so that if you go to the site and they are out, you know why. That is all I have. Thank you for reading this far. I hope something here was useful to you. — Eleanor P.S. I want to come back to the cold-press for a second. The betalain pigment — the deep red, the part the research community keeps circling back to — is heat-sensitive. Process beetroot the standard way, with heat, and you lose some of the compound to the heat. Rosabella chose the slow way. Cold-press, low temperatures, more of the compound through to the capsule. It costs them money and time. They made the choice anyway. At seventy, after forty-something years of paying attention to how people and companies do things, I have learned that the small careful decisions tell you everything. P.P.S. Two capsules. In the morning. With a glass of water. That is the entire protocol. No powder to mix. No afternoon dose to remember. No schedule taped to the inside of the cupboard. I keep the bottle on the counter next to the kettle. I make my tea, I take the two capsules, I sit at the kitchen table with my tea and the newspaper. That has been the rhythm of my morning for thirteen months. I am seventy and I have earned a simple morning. P.P.P.S. I am going to say it one more time, because I have to. Please. Call your pharmacist or your doctor's office before you add anything new to what you are already taking. Especially if you are on anything cardiovascular. They have your whole picture. I have written you a letter. There is a difference, and the difference matters. The two minutes it takes to ask are worth every second. P.P.P.P.S. The guarantee, again, in case you skimmed. Ninety days. Any reason at all. You do not have to prove a single thing — not to them, not about your numbers, not about how you feel. If you tried it and you are not satisfied, you are not satisfied, and they send the money back. That is the whole policy. A small-company policy. The kind of thing companies used to do when companies still answered the phone. P.P.P.P.P.S. The thing my doctor said to me at the appointment when I was forty-seven and a half — the work of preventive cardiovascular care is mostly the work of small daily choices, over a long time, sustained — has been the organizing sentence of my last twenty-three years. It is not a dramatic sentence. It is not the kind of sentence that sells supplements. It is, in my experience, the truest sentence about cardiovascular wellness that I have heard from anyone in the medical profession. Rosabella is one small daily choice, in a long list of small daily choices, added on top of the rest of my preventive care. If you are reading this and you have been doing the small daily things for twenty years, or ten years, or two years, or for the first time this month, I hope you keep doing them. I hope your cardiovascular bloodwork stays in the ranges your doctor wants it in. I hope your seventy-year-old self walks the same loop she has been walking for thirty-six years and finishes it without thinking too much about it. I hope that for you. That is the whole reason I wrote this. — E. https://track.tryrosabella.com/14309c20-4d60-44e3-9565-5ba6bb358986 DISCLAIMER Individual experiences vary. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.