Hawthorn, The Heart-Healthy Helper
Hawthorn, a berry of the genus Crataegus (there are many species, but they seem to give more or less the same benefits), has been enjoyed for hundreds of years, if not thousands, as a herbal remedy for many ailments, mostly of the cardiovascular, digestive, and/or endocrine systems:
Crataegus pinnatifida: Chemical Constituents, Pharmacology, and Potential Applications
Antioxidant & Anti-inflammatory
Like most berries, it’s full of helpful polyphenols, with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Indeed, as Dr. Nabavi et al. wrote,
❝Crataegus monogyna Jacq. (hawthorn) is one of the most important edible plants of the Rosaceae family and is also used in traditional medicine.
Growing evidence has shown that this plant has various interesting physiological and pharmacological activities due to the presence of different bioactive natural compounds.
In addition, scientific evidence suggests that the toxicity of hawthorn is negligible. ❞
Read in full: Polyphenolic Composition of Crataegus monogyna Jacq.: From Chemistry to Medical Applications
While “the toxicity of hawthorn is negligible” may be reasonably considered a baseline for recommending an edible plant, it’s still important as just that: a baseline. It’s good to know that berries are safe, after all!
More positively, about those antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties:
👆 This one was a mouse study, but it’s important as it about modulating liver injury after being fed a high fructose diet.
In other words: it a) helps undo the biggest cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, b) logically, likely guards against diabetes also (by the same mechanism)
Anti-Diabetes Potential
Curious about that latter point, we looked for studies, and found, for example:
- Hypoglycemic effect of hawthorn in type II diabetes mellitus rat model
- Molecular Mechanisms of Hawthorn Extracts in Multiple Organs Disorders in Underlying of Diabetes: A Review
- Modulation of GPC-4 and GPLD1 serum levels by improving glycemic indices in type 2 diabetes: Resistance training and hawthorn extract intervention
Noteworthily, those studies are from the past couple of years, which is probably why we’re not seeing many human trials for this yet—everything has to be done in order, and there’s a lengthy process between each.
We did find some human trials with hawthorn in diabetes patients, for example:
…but as you see, that’s testing not its antidiabetic potential, so far demonstrated only in mice and rats (so far as we could find), but rather its blood pressure lowering effects, using diabetic patients as a sample.
Blood pressure benefits
Hawthorn has been studied specifically for its hypotensive effect, for example:
As an extra bonus, did you notice in the conclusion,
❝Furthermore, a trend towards a reduction in anxiety (p = 0.094) was also observed in those taking hawthorn compared with the other groups.
These findings warrant further study, particularly in view of the low dose of hawthorn extract used.❞
…it seems that not a lot more study has been done yet, but that is promising too!
Other blood metrics
So, it has antidiabetic and antihypertensive benefits, what of blood lipids?
Hawthorn Fruit Extract Elevates Expression of Nrf2/HO-1 and Improves Lipid Profiles
And as for arterial plaque?
👆 here it was tested alongside another herb, and performed well (also against placebo).
In summary…
Hawthorn (Crataegus sp.) is…
- a potent berry containing many polyphenols with good antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects
- looking promising against diabetes, but research for this is still in early stages
- found to have other cardioprotective effects (antihypertensive, improves lipid profiles), too
- considered to have negligible toxicity
Where can I get it?
As ever, we don’t sell it, but here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon 😎
Enjoy!
