Hawthorn

Hawthorn is loved both in traditional and alternative medicine for its unique healing properties and a very small list of contraindications for taking. The plant is used as the basis for tinctures, decoctions or infusions, but compotes, wine and jam are also prepared from it, brewed into tea. The plant is unpretentious, grows in many regions of our country, it is easy to collect and harvest for future use.

Hawthorn: what are its features

Outwardly, the fruits of hawthorn and wild rose are similar, so many confuse them. And although both plants are useful and used in medicine, they have a number of serious differences. These are plants of different groups with differences in the form of flowers and leaves, although the berries may be similar. Therefore, before collecting, you need to make sure that this is the plant you need.

Hawthorn is valued for a number of useful components in its composition. This is a high content of vitamins and a complex of trace elements (including iodine, cobalt and selenium), as well as beta-carotene, tannins, phytosterols, various organic acids and glycosides. In addition, hawthorn is rich in essential oils, phytohormones. These berries have a low calorie content, which allows you to add them to the menu of those who lose weight, while replenishing the supply of trace elements and essential vitamins. This helps to cope with the lack of vitamins in the off-season.

Healing properties of hawthorn

Hawthorn fruits, as well as its leaves and flowers, contain a high amount of biologically active compounds that have a therapeutic and preventive effect. Due to this composition, hawthorn helps in general health promotion and immunity stimulation, elimination of hypovitaminosis. In addition, it is indicated for strengthening the walls of blood vessels, including small capillaries, and also as a remedy for vascular spasms, a diuretic and edematous plant, and a cholesterol-lowering agent.

This plant, when taken regularly and properly, has a number of therapeutic and prophylactic effects on the body of adults and children.

Various variants of medicinal compositions (decoctions, tea, infusions, tinctures) have an anti-inflammatory effect and an antimicrobial effect. This allows them to be used for colds, inflammation of the respiratory tract and digestive problems.

Biologically active components of hawthorn help in preventing the growth of malignant cells in the body, and can fight cancer in people predisposed to it.

Vitamins and minerals in the composition of the plant help to strengthen the vascular walls and myocardium, protecting against cardiovascular pathologies.

The plant has regenerative effects, due to which it is actively used in the process of healing wounds and burns, to rejuvenate the body due to the ability to stimulate the synthesis of collagen fibers in the skin and renew the epithelium.

Various types of medicinal preparations are used in the elimination of migraine attacks and tension headaches, in the fight against allergies and epilepsy attacks. There is evidence that hawthorn tea and its tincture, taken by prescription, helps to normalize thyroid function, improves blood glucose regulation, cleanses the liver and enhances its activity, and also stimulates metabolic processes and weight loss, burning excess fat.

Contraindications to hawthorn

One of the advantages of hawthorn is the lack of toxicity, so it can be used for a long time without dangerous or negative health effects. But this does not mean at all that hawthorn is possible for everyone and there are no contraindications to taking it. Among the key prohibitions on its use, it is worth highlighting:

• tea, decoctions or infusions with the fruits of the plant should not be taken on an empty stomach – it irritates the mucous membranes of the digestive tract and can lead to an exacerbation of chronic pathologies, provoke abdominal pain and intestinal cramps;
• you can not drink various types of herbal infusions, tea or decoction of drugs – this can provoke unwanted interaction reactions and provokes abdominal pain, cramps and inflammation;
• various compositions with hawthorn should not be consumed before driving – they have a relaxing, sedative effect and can provoke drowsiness, which is dangerous when driving;
• the use of hawthorn for expectant mothers is prohibited (in any trimester of pregnancy), sometimes the plant can provoke premature birth or death of the fetus, bleeding;
• it is highly not recommended to take any preparations with hawthorn for women who are breastfeeding their babies;
• it is natural that any variants of preparations with hawthorn fall under the ban if an allergy or intolerance to plant components is suspected;
• it is completely necessary to exclude hawthorn from patients after a stroke or heart attack, it can provoke complications and worsen the condition.

Side effects from taking hawthorn preparations are often caused by improper dose selection or self-medication, taking an excess of the drug. It is important to carry out treatment with this herbal raw material only after discussion with the doctor and strictly under his control. The doctor will determine the compatibility of hawthorn with traditional medicines, choose a treatment regimen and its duration.

Application of hawthorn

Herbal remedies with hawthorn are actively used in the treatment of women’s health problems. Tea, decoctions, infusions help eliminate tissue hypoxia, support the cardiovascular system, reduce the severity of migraine and adjust the level of sex hormones. Reception of hawthorn also helps in slowing down the aging process, preserves youthfulness of the skin, and eliminates minor defects. Tea with hawthorn helps in weight correction, eliminating swelling and enhancing metabolic processes, stimulating the burning of subcutaneous fat.

Hawthorn is no less useful for the male body. Phytopreparations with this plant help eliminate or reduce the severity of pathologies of the coronary arteries, normalize the violation of capillary blood flow and eliminate the effects of tissue hypoxia. Hawthorn eliminates hypovitaminosis, fights frequent headaches, normalizes sleep and eliminates neuroses, helps in the treatment of erectile dysfunction (including those associated with overwork and stress).

In childhood, herbal remedies with hawthorn can be used strictly according to the doctor’s prescription. They help to replenish the reserves of vitamins and trace elements, strengthen the immune system, the overall tone of the body. Tea with hawthorn will help in normalizing sleep, strengthening the vascular wall and eliminating hyperactivity, and improve digestion. But drugs with hawthorn are shown only to children after 10 years.

Recipes for herbal remedies based on hawthorn

Hawthorn is part of many preparations and herbal preparations, but the following types of herbal medicine are most often used.

Tincture, decoction or infusion with hawthorn berries helps in eliminating neurosis and stress, irritability, normalizes the work of the heart and blood vessels, strengthens the immune system and overall emotional tone.

Tincture

Decoction of berries

Tea with hawthorn flowers

Reviews of doctors about hawthorn

Olga Zorina, pharmacist, teacher of pharmacology, chief editor of MedCorr:

– In the recent past, prickly hawthorn was one of the most used heart remedies, today it has been replaced by synthetic drugs. The plant has a cardiotonic, antiarrhythmic, hypotensive effect, supports the work of the myocardium when taken regularly as an infusion, and has a sedative effect.

Important! This is an excellent heart-supporting remedy, it goes well with medications, it must be used as directed and under the supervision of a doctor, self-medication can lead to heart failure. In children, use under the strict supervision of a physician; no direct contraindications have been identified.

Elena Korsun, Ph.D. head Department of Phytotherapy, ICM RUDN University, Head of the Educational and Health Center at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:

– Hawthorn fruits, which have cardioprotective, hypotensive and hypocholesterolemic properties, are now widely used in the treatment of various cardiovascular diseases. Hawthorn fruits help to improve myocardial contractility, eliminate both tachycardia and bradycardia, show vitamin, stress-protective, antihypoxic effects. It is used in the form of tincture, infusion and decoction of crushed fruits.