GENERAL MEDICINE
Hawthorn good for the heart
January 24, 2008
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A new study suggests that hawthorn extract can significantly improve the symptoms of heart failure – a condition in which the heart cannot meet the body’s need for blood because it is not pumping properly.
Heart failure is often the end stage of another form of heart disease such as atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). However anything that puts a strain on the heart, such as obesity, can also lead to the condition. Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, fluid accumulation in the feet and ankles and dizziness.
Hawthorn extract has long been thought to improve heart health, so a team of researchers set out to determine whether it is actually an effective treatment.
A team of Cochrane researchers looked at 14 studies involving almost 900 participants.
They found that hawthorn had a number of beneficial effects. It led to a decrease in ‘pressure heart rate product’, which is a measurement of how much oxygen is used by the heart. Furthermore those that used the extract reported significant improvements in exercise tolerance and appeared to suffer less from shortness of breath and fatigue.
Side effects were reported to be ‘infrequent, mild and transient’.
According to the UK researchers, patients who took hawthorn showed a ‘significant benefit in symptom control and physiologic outcomes’. The extract appears to boost the strength of heart contractions, increase blood flow through the arteries and reduce irregular heartbeats.
However the researchers did point out that those who took part in the studies had mild to moderate heart failure. They warned that hawthorn might cause greater side effects in patients who have to take very powerful drugs to control their disease.
Details of this study are published in the Cochrane Library.
For more information on heart health, see our Heart Disease Clinic at…http://www.heart.ie