Hawthorn's efficacy and medicinal value

Is hawthorn a medicinal material? I believe many friends are not very clear about this question. Let me tell you below.

hawthorn

Hawthorn, also known as red fruit and hawthorn, is a small deciduous tree of the Rosaceae family. The bark is dark gray with light yellow lenticels, the twigs are purple-brown, the leaves are alternate or clustered on short branches, the leaves are broadly ovate, the umbel inflorescence is white, and the flowers turn pink later. The fruit is spherical, dark red when ripe, and has light-colored small spots on the surface. The flowering period is May-June, and the fruiting period is July-October. The fruit is sweet and sour, can promote body fluid and quench thirst, and can also be used as medicine. The medicine belongs to the spleen, stomach, and liver meridians, and has the effects of digesting food, removing accumulation, and promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis. Hawthorn trees have strong adaptability, are easy to cultivate, have neat crowns, lush branches and leaves, are less damaged by diseases and insects, and have delicious and lovely flowers and fruits. Therefore, they are also good ornamental trees for greening fields and gardens.

The efficacy of hawthorn

1. Hawthorn can prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases, dilate blood vessels, increase coronary blood flow, improve heart vitality, excite the central nervous system, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, soften blood vessels, and have diuretic and sedative effects;

2. Hawthorn acid also has a cardiotonic effect and is also beneficial for senile heart disease;

3. It can stimulate appetite and help digestion, especially for eliminating meat stagnation. Many digestive medicines use hawthorn.

4. Hawthorn has the effect of promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, which helps to relieve local blood stasis and has an auxiliary effect on traumatic injuries;

5. Hawthorn has a contraction effect on the uterus, which can help pregnant women to give birth and promote the recovery of the uterus after childbirth.

6. The flavonoids, vitamin C, carotene and other substances contained in hawthorn can block and reduce the generation of free radicals, enhance the body's immunity, and have anti-aging and anti-cancer effects;

7. Hawthorn contains ingredients that can relieve asthma, reduce phlegm, inhibit bacteria, and treat abdominal pain and diarrhea.

Medicinal value of hawthorn

Hawthorn has important medicinal value. Since ancient times, it has been a good medicine for strengthening the spleen and appetite, digesting food and removing stagnation, and promoting blood circulation and removing phlegm. At present, there are more than 50 Chinese medicine formulas using hawthorn as raw materials, such as the common appetizer and spleen medicines "Hawthorn Pills" and "Jiao Sanxian".

Ancient Chinese medical scientists have long valued the softening and stagnation-removing effects of hawthorn. When cooking hard old chicken meat, adding a few hawthorns will make it easier to break, indicating that it has the effect of removing stagnation from meat. Chinese medicines such as Jiao Lanxian, Baohe Pills, and Shanzha Pills all use hawthorn as their main ingredient; hawthorn also has the effects of dispersing blood stasis, stopping bleeding, preventing heatstroke, and refreshing.

Because hawthorn contains hawthorn acid and other organic acids, it tastes sour and sweet, and contains lipase. After entering the stomach, it can enhance the action of enzymes, promote meat digestion, and help cholesterol conversion. Therefore, for people who feel full after eating meat or greasy food, eating some hawthorn, hawthorn slices, hawthorn water or hawthorn pills can help digestion. It is a key food for the elderly. Hawthorn can also promote bile secretion and promote gastric juice secretion.

Since hawthorn is rich in various organic acids, it can keep the vitamin C in hawthorn, and it will not be destroyed even when heated. Therefore, after being made into products such as hawthorn cake, vitamin C can still be preserved. Hawthorn is also rich in carotene, calcium, oleanolic acid, guanine acid, hawthornein and other triterpenoid olefin acids and flavonoids and other beneficial ingredients (flavonoid polyflavan, triflavan, tannin and other chemical components), which can dilate blood vessels, strengthen and regulate myocardium, increase ventricular and cardiac movement amplitude and coronary blood flow, reduce serum cholesterol and blood pressure; in addition, hawthorn has an auxiliary therapeutic effect on cardiac activity dysfunction, vascular neurosis, fibrillation arrhythmia and other diseases; hawthorn also contains quercetin, which has the function of dilating blood vessels, promoting tracheal cilia movement, expectoration and asthma, so hawthorn is an ideal health food and a food with good efficacy in preventing and treating cardiovascular diseases.

According to pharmacological experiments, the decoction of scorched hawthorn has obvious inhibitory effects on various Shigella dysenteriae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus anthracis, etc. in vitro, so it can be used to treat bacillary dysentery.

Hawthorn can also treat tapeworms. Take 1 kg of fresh hawthorn, wash it, and chew it from 15:00 to 22:00 in the afternoon. Do not eat dinner. The next morning, take 100 grams of betel nut decoction in water and rest in bed. When you feel like having a bowel movement, wait for a while before going to the toilet. This will help expel the complete tapeworm. In winter, you should sit on a warm water toilet to prevent the tapeworm from shrinking due to the cold. The efficiency can reach 100%.

The pectin content in hawthorn ranks first among all fruits, reaching 6.4%. According to the latest research, pectin has the function of anti-radiation substance, taking away half of the radioactive elements (strontium, cobalt, palladium, etc.) from the body. Pectin also has adsorption and antibacterial properties, which can remove bacteria and toxins from the intestines and bind water, so it can cure diarrhea.