Hawthorn for the heart and blood vessels - recipes for tinctures, tea, decoction

Useful properties and chemical composition

The constituent elements of hawthorn have not yet been fully studied. But these substances are known to benefit the human body.

The vitamin complex of fruits includes:

• ascorbic acid;
• tocopherol;
• phylloquinone;
• vitamin A;
• nicotinic acid;
• routine;
• riboflavin.

Organic acids were found in flowers, berries and leaves of hawthorn:

• oleanolic;
• aconite;
• ursolic;
• coffee shop;
• lemon;
• stearic

Among the useful elements, flavonoids are isolated - hyperin, quercetin, which prolong the youth of the body. Fruits and flowers contain choline, essential oil, carotenoids, pectins, sugars.

Minerals are represented by a large group. Phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium have significant weight in the composition. In total, the culture contains ¼ ​​of the elements of the periodic table.

The effectiveness of hawthorn has been proven for the following diseases and conditions:

1. Nervous system disorder, psycho-emotional instability. It has a sedative effect on the body. Insomnia, irritability, and excessive excitability disappear. Medicinal forms do not cause absent-mindedness, dizziness, or drowsiness.
2. Swelling. Hawthorn, unlike other remedies, flushes the kidneys without removing beneficial substances. Acts as a diuretic. Able to dissolve and remove sand and stones through the ureters.
3. Insufficient activity, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, liver. Due to its enveloping properties and viscosity, the fruit crop reduces pain from ulcers, colitis, and gastritis. Accelerates metabolism, stimulates digestive processes. The flowers of the bush enhance the secretion of bile.
4. Diabetes. Hawthorn normalizes the functioning of the pancreas and reduces blood sugar levels. Strengthening the body's immune defense promotes the healing of existing ulcers and prevents the formation of new ones.
5. Problems with brain activity. The fruit culture, by dilating blood vessels, preventing their early degenerative changes, prolongs the period of normal functioning of the brain, and reduces the risk of stroke.

Hawthorn, as part of complex therapy, is involved in the treatment of:

• viral infections;
• hyperthyroidism;
• leukemia;
• neoplasms;
• allergies;
• glaucoma;
• migraines;
• prostate gland;
• vegetative-vascular dystonia;
• rheumatism;
• hemophilia.

The leaves, flowers, and fruits of the bush have a beneficial effect on the skin, moisturizing, increasing elasticity, and healing wounds and ulcers. Infusions and decoctions help women during menopause relieve tension and prevent mastopathy.

Tea made from the fruit eliminates intoxication from poisoning. Nutritionists use berries containing organic acids to break down fats when losing weight.

Lactation improves for nursing mothers who include berries in their diet. Due to its balanced composition, the fruit crop is used as a general strengthening and preventive remedy.

Description

Hawthorn is a shrub or tree, up to 5 m high, from the Rosaceae family. Distributed in temperate latitudes of North America, Europe and Asia. The plant is very unpretentious and tolerates both frost and summer heat. Grows well both in the garden and in the forest. The shrub is extremely durable: it grows up to 400 years.

Hawthorn is grown for its medicinal properties and decorative properties. The shrub is multi-stemmed, with a dense crown, and holds its shape well. Hawthorn blooms profusely and produces many small bright red fruits. Against the background of green foliage, both berries and flowers look very decorative.

Since the 16th century, decoctions and infusions of the shrub's leaves have been used to treat dysentery and other forms of diarrhea. Later, the blood purifying properties of hawthorn became known. In the 20th century, the fruits, leaves and flowers of the plant were used to treat diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

How it is useful for problems of the cardiovascular system

Hawthorn has gained popularity for helping with pathologies of the heart and blood vessels, especially in older people.

The culture is useful for heart failure, hypertension, tachycardia, angina pectoris, arrhythmia, weakness and fragility of blood vessels, conditions after heart attacks.

Medicines based on hawthorn prevent myocardial fatigue. By dilating blood vessels, they increase the volume of oxygen necessary to activate neural connections and normal functioning of the heart muscle.

Thanks to quercetin, the permeability of blood vessels decreases and their walls thicken. Moreover, in flowers the concentration of the substance is higher than in fruits. Berry juice normalizes high blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Attention! Regular use of hawthorn-based medications by older people supports cardiac function. Pulls back degenerative changes in the brain, which allows you to preserve mental functions and memory for many years/

Antioxidants in the composition inhibit intercellular oxidation processes, promote tissue regeneration, and prolong their youth.

Hawthorn facilitates ischemia and normalizes the rhythm of the heart muscle. The fruits reduce provoking factors such as insomnia, excessive nervous excitability, and stressful conditions.

Organic acids reduce inflammation, improve blood flow, and prevent the appearance of atherosclerosis. The vitamin-mineral complex is responsible for strengthening muscle tissue and its damage.

About the wonderful berry

Hawthorn is a fairly tall (up to 6 m) shrub of the Rosaceae family. Sometimes it is called a boyarka or noblewoman. This is connected with the legend about a kind lady herbalist who treated her slaves for various ailments. For these deeds, the forest witch, before her death, turned the lady into a plant that heals people. And although our red-fruited beauty is slightly prickly, it is really useful.

Dried hawthorn berries for tincture. (Photo author: Nikolay Smirnov / alkolife.ru)

The following were found in the fruits and flowers of the plant:

• flavonoids (hyperoside, quercetrin);
• organic acids (ascorbic, caffeic, citric, etc.);
• vitamin-like and tannins;
• essential and fatty oils;
• carotene;
• choline;
• sorbitol and sugar.

By toning the heart muscle, hawthorn preparations reduce its excitability, improve blood circulation (coronary and cerebral), relieve arrhythmia and tachycardia, nervous fatigue, and eliminate “heaviness” in the heart.

No side effects have been identified from the medicinal plant, so the drug from it is taken even by people with impaired kidney function (although in this case it is more correct to make water infusions).

The fruits are collected in dry weather in mid-autumn and dried at t=50-60°C. As for hawthorn flowers, they are collected at the beginning of blooming, dried indoors, placing them in a thin layer on a baking sheet.

Hawthorn for heart failure

The heart muscles do not contract sufficiently for congenital and acquired reasons. Pathologies acquired at birth include physiological abnormalities in the structure of an organ. In the second case, the disease develops with prolonged hypertension, after a heart attack, tissue inflammation, or the development of neoplasms.

Due to improper functioning of the heart muscle, the internal organs are not sufficiently washed with blood, which leads to a lack of nutrition and oxygen.

Hawthorn relieves myocardial tension and tones muscle tissue if properly prepared and taken.

Recipes for heart failure

Juice from the fruit A glass of washed, chopped fresh berries is poured into a cooking container with 100 g of water, placed on the stove, heated to 40 °C. Strain, take a quarter glass during each meal.

Infusion for heart failure This recipe uses hawthorn flower. Art. Place a spoonful of petals in a thermos and pour 250 ml of boiling water. Leave for 3–4 hours, consume in 3 doses. You can add a spoonful of dry knotweed and half the amount of horsetail to the petals.

Tea from the collection To enhance the effect, in addition to 15 g of hawthorn fruits, add the same amount of rose hips, chamomile flowers, valerian or motherwort, and green tea to the teapot. Drink half a cup three times a day.

For hypertension

With high blood pressure, vital organs such as the heart, brain, and kidneys are affected. Hypertension often leads to left ventricular hypertrophy, cerebrovascular accident, decreased visual acuity, and atherosclerosis of the extremities. The use of medicinal products based on hawthorn helps to normalize blood pressure.

Recipes effective for hypertension:

1. First, a collection is prepared from equal parts of hawthorn, motherwort, sweet clover and 1/3 of chokeberry. Place a spoonful of plant material in a thermos, add 200 ml of boiling water, and leave for 6–8 hours. Take a glass every morning with meals.
2. Another collection option consists of equal parts of hawthorn, caraway, rue and four parts of valerian root. The raw materials are boiled on the stove for three minutes.
3. The diuretic effect will be enhanced if you brew tea from equal parts of hawthorn and rose hips. The fruits will fully give up their healing properties to the water if the tea is steamed for at least a day. Use daily for 4–6 weeks.

Important! Hawthorn does not contain toxic substances, but the dosage should be followed to avoid negative side effects.

Use for ischemia, infarction and stenosis

When there is insufficient oxygen supply to the myocardium due to stenosis of the coronary arteries, pain and heaviness appear behind the sternum. This is how ischemia manifests itself, which, against the background of high cholesterol and atherosclerotic plaques, can lead to a vascular catastrophe - a heart attack.

During rehabilitation after a myocardial rupture, doctors recommend taking berry juice with the addition of a teaspoon of vegetable oil twice a day. Later, it is allowed to drink a weak fruit decoction instead of water.

To treat ischemia, prepare a decoction of three tablespoons of hawthorn berries and the same amount of motherwort, poured with three glasses of boiling water. The drink is infused for 24 hours, drunk during the day in three doses.

For stenosis and ischemia, it is useful to drink an infusion whose color is similar to weakly brewed black tea. A drink made from a complex collection alleviates the condition of these diseases.

To prepare it, combine half a glass of the colors of hawthorn, horse chestnut, and birch leaves. 50 g of heather and wheatgrass roots are also added there. Everything is mixed and crushed. Pour boiling water over a teaspoon of the mixture and leave for 20–30 minutes. Drink half a glass before bed and in the morning.

To strengthen blood vessels

Due to decreased elasticity, blood vessels cannot quickly adapt to external changes. If you do not consult a doctor in time, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and varicose veins will develop.

It is known that hawthorn accelerates tissue regeneration, so it is included in the complex treatment of weak blood vessels.

To prepare the drink you will need 3 tablespoons of hawthorn color, 2 tablespoons of herb capitula. The mixture is poured into 500 ml of water, brought to a boil, wrapped in a saucepan or poured into a thermos, and left for 4–6 hours. It is recommended to take 100 ml infusion before meals.

Cooking secrets

For preventive purposes and for the treatment of untreated health problems, the best solution would be hawthorn tincture prepared at home. Making it with your own hands is not at all difficult, the main thing is to choose the right raw materials and know how many degrees of alcohol are contained in the base alcohol.

Berries

The choice is luxurious - there are more than three hundred species of shrubs. And at the same time, any of them is suitable for hawthorn tincture (no matter what color the fruits are)! However, it has been noted that the taste and color of tinctures made from red fruits are richer and more intense. We will take them for our further recipes.

The tincture can be made from fresh, dried or dried berries. Just not the spoiled or disease-ridden ones.

If the cooking recipe calls for the use of, for example, 100 gr. dried berries, and you only have fresh ones in stock, then you just need to double their quantity - take (for example) 200 grams. product.

Alcohol base

Any 40-45% alcohol (or diluted to this level) will do here. More often than others, hawthorn fruits are infused with vodka at home, but diluted alcohol and carefully purified moonshine have also proven themselves to be effective. Gourmets can use other, but equally effective and affordable bases - gin, rum, brandy or inexpensive cognac.

Sweeteners and additives

Traditional granulated sugar in the composition is often replaced with honey, which increases the benefits of the product, but at the same time limits the use of such hawthorn tincture. For example, people who are allergic to bee products should not drink it.

The list of components of hawthorn tincture can include vanilla and cinnamon, dried herbs (St. John's wort, lemon balm, mint, oregano) and spices (cardamom, anise, etc.), as well as up to 50% of other autumn berries - viburnum, cranberry, rose hips.

When to collect and how to harvest hawthorn

Plant materials are collected in dry sunny weather away from the roadway and industrial enterprises. Flowers are picked before full bloom, berries after ripening until frost.

The inflorescences are dried immediately after collection. To do this, they are laid out in a thin layer in well-ventilated areas or heated in the oven at 40 ° C until completely dry. Use the color for two years.

Rose hips last much longer - 5–6 years. When drying in the oven, set the temperature to 60–70 °C. Hawthorn is also prepared for long-term storage by placing the berries on pallets at the rate of 3–4 kg per 1 sq. m. m.

The leaves are collected before or during the flowering of the bush, the bark - in the spring, when the movement of juices begins. After drying the parts of the fruit crop, they are placed in paper bags or canvas bags. If you have space in the refrigerator, an alternative storage method is freezing.

Hawthorn tea

The hawthorn drink contains few calories and is pleasant to the taste. It is prepared from fresh or dried berries, flowers, and leaves. Tea is useful for insufficient activity of the heart muscle and slow blood circulation. The drink saturates the body with vitamins and minerals and has a general strengthening effect on the body.

To prepare, 15 g (1 tbsp) of plant material is placed in a thermos and 200 ml of boiling water is added. After 3-4 hours, healthy tea is ready.

To improve the taste and replenish vitamins, add chokeberry or rose hips. In case of poor digestion, a tablespoon of the mixture, consisting of equal parts of hawthorn fruits, black tea, and walnut partitions, is poured with 300 ml of boiling water and left for 30 minutes.

The drink can also be steamed in a teapot, but a thermos retains heat better and eliminates the need to chop the fruit.

Hawthorn tincture

Alcohol tincture is prescribed in complex therapy for increased excitability, neuroses during menopause, insomnia, in the early stages of hypertension, and heart disease.

The medicinal form is available for purchase in pharmacies, but there are preparations of herbal raw materials, so the process of preparing the tincture at home will not take much time.

To make your own medicine you will need a liter of 70 percent ethyl alcohol. It is poured with 100 g of crushed rose hips and left for 2–4 weeks. The output is a sweetish amber-colored liquid. Take 20 drops before each meal. If vodka is used instead of alcohol, it should cover the hawthorn two fingers higher.

Hawthorn fruit decoction

The homeopathic remedy has a cardiotonic effect, vasodilator, antiarrhythmic, and sedative properties. It is used for degenerative changes in blood vessels and heart, hypertension, problems with the gastrointestinal tract.

Since the decoction extracts useful substances even from coarse plant parts, bark is used for its preparation, in addition to leaves, color and fruits.

The remedy is prepared using a water bath. First, 50 g of plant material, filled with half a liter of boiling water, is placed in a small saucepan. Place the dishes with the contents in a larger container with water. This structure is placed on a heated stove, and the decoction is prepared for 20 minutes. After cooling, the drink is filtered and taken 50 g during or after meals.

Medicines based on hawthorn

There are drugs based on hawthorn, which are officially certified by the Ministry of Health for use in the treatment and prevention of diseases of the cardiovascular system.

These include:

1️⃣ Complex of hawthorn and red grape extracts

It is used specifically for the prevention of diseases of the cardiovascular system. Available in the form of capsules (300 mg of active ingredients each). Prescribe 2 capsules per day for 1 – 2 months (at the discretion of the attending physician). Contraindications include only pregnancy and breastfeeding.

2️⃣ Drops “Gerboton”

It is an alcohol infusion (the quantitative ethanol rate is 70%). Sold in bottles of 25 and 100 milliliters. Prescribed for functional failures in the cardiovascular system (including neurocirculatory dystonia). Take 20 drops 3 times a day. Prescription is also allowed for children, but only from 12 years of age (the dosage is determined individually by the doctor).

3️⃣ Kratal

It is a concentrated extract of hawthorn and motherwort fruits. Prescribed for neurocirculatory dystonia during an exacerbation, can be used for the prevention of cardiac disorders. Take 2 - 3 times a day, 1 - 2 tablets, course - up to 30 days.

There are many other medications that your pharmacist or doctor can recommend.

Although the above drugs are sold without a prescription, you should not take them without medical advice. For some diseases of the cardiovascular system, their use is strictly prohibited!

Hawthorn is a common plant that is actively used in the treatment of diseases of the cardiovascular system. There are minimal contraindications for its use: individual intolerance, age under 12 years, pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Tea, decoction and infusion based on it are an excellent option for the prevention of cardiac diseases. It was also previously widely used in cooking for making jam and compote.

Contraindications

To ensure that after consuming hawthorn there are no side effects in the form of low blood pressure, intestinal spasms, heart rhythm disturbances, vomiting, consider contraindications. These include:

• hypotension;
• bradycardia;
• peptic ulcer;
• constipation;
• allergy.

Alcohol tinctures are not indicated for liver diseases. Women during pregnancy and breastfeeding are allowed aqueous forms of the product after consultation with a doctor. You cannot combine the use of hawthorn in any form with diuretics.

Original hawthorn tincture

This variation was tested by one distiller - a fan of traditional medicine (he obtained it experimentally). The drink is prepared for the winter and has a sweetish aftertaste with a pleasant sourness.

As a result of the creation of this drug, two complete medicinal products are obtained at once.

The second feature is that the drug is prepared “by eye”, only the proportions are observed, i.e. You can add as many berries as you like (the main thing is that there is enough alcohol).

Ingredients:

• hawthorn fruits;
• honey;
• alcohol 70-96% or moonshine 70-85% (cannot be replaced with other, weaker alcoholic drinks);
• rose hip;
• sugar.

Preparation of hawthorn tincture:

1. Hawthorn berries (in any quantity) are passed through a juicer (preferably an auger). As a result, two fractions are formed - a jelly-like substance and cake.
2. By mixing one part of the jelly-like substance with three parts of natural honey, the first medicinal “potion” is obtained.
3. Next we work with the cake. We fill a third of any suitable container with it and fill the remaining space (2/3 of the volume) with undiluted alcohol or strong, odorless moonshine. Stir thoroughly, close and leave for 3 months. During this time, the strength of the alcohol/distillate will decrease by 10-15%.
4. The most interesting point is that the resulting tincture is diluted with a sweet infusion or rosehip decoction. To prepare them, 2 tbsp. Rosehip berries are poured into 0.5 liters of boiling water and either left overnight (in a thermos) or boiled for an hour over low heat (after boiling). Then the rose hips are removed, and the liquid is sweetened to taste and cooled. After this, the aqueous extract of rosehip is introduced into a strong, filtered infusion of hawthorn until the desired strength is obtained.

Collection and procurement of raw materials

At home, preparations based on fruits and flowers are more often used.

The inflorescences are collected during flowering. Only those flowers that have fully opened are selected. They are collected during the day, after the dew has completely disappeared. In rain or cloudy weather, the collection is canceled. To dry, flowers are laid out on paper in a dark, well-ventilated place.

The fruits are picked in October, when they are fully ripe. Hawthorn berries are washed and dried in the oven at a temperature of about 50 C. The oven door is not closed. The fruits are considered ready when they darken.

Dry raw materials should be stored in paper or canvas bags. Berries can be frozen for long-term storage. The shelf life of the prepared product is 2 years.