Crataegus oxyacantha

Properties and usage:

These plants are used mostly for circulatory and cardiac problems, particularly chest angina. For the phytotherapists, it is the heart plant, because it increases blood flow to the heart and regulates the pulse.

Effects on the organism:

It is a tonic for the heart. Hawthorn owes its medicinal properties to its flavonoids which relax and dilate the coronary arteries, thus increasing the blood flow to the heart and reducing the symptoms of chest angina. The flavonoids also have a powerful antioxydant effect, thus contributing to reduce the risks of blood vessels' degeneration.

Hawthorn regulates the pulse and lowers hypertension. It is know the world over. For this reason, it is prescribed to alleviate hypertension but equally hypotension by re-establishing a normal pressure.

This plant is recommended for moderate heart weakness and heart rate problems. Although effective, its good benefits may sometimes be felt only several months after the onset of treatment because it has to adapt itself to the physiological process of the organism. Its medicinal properties were known in the Middle Ages. It symbolized hope.

Principal constituents: flavonoids, triterpenes, coumarines, tanins.