By She Dianke, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University

I believe you have eaten hawthorn cake, hawthorn cake, hawthorn rolls, hawthorn sauce, canned hawthorn, hawthorn wine, dried hawthorn, and so on, and yes, this is the protagonist of what we are going to introduce today - hawthorn.

Hawthorn, for the Rosaceae plant Shanlihong or hawthorn dry mature fruit, flavor acidic warm, is both a fruit, can also be used in medicine, is belongs to the medicinal food with traditional Chinese medicine. In daily life, it is often used as a kind of food to strengthen the spleen and open the stomach, eliminate food and stagnation, but its function is more than that. In addition to the above functions, it can also lower blood lipids, lower blood pressure, protect the liver, strengthen the heart, antioxidant, anti-fatigue, strong immune system, etc. It is also very effective in treating chest and diaphragm spleen fullness, hernia, blood stasis, amenorrhea and other conditions. And today we mainly explore its role in lowering blood fat.

The main hypolipidemic active ingredients in hawthorn include hawthorn flavonoids, triterpenoids, phytosterols, pectin five ponds and so on. Modern pharmacological research has proved that hawthorn has hypolipidemic effect and can be used to prevent and treat hyperlipidemia. Its lipid-lowering mechanism is through inhibiting the synthesis of cholesterol by the liver and promoting the liver's uptake of cholesterol from the blood, so as to achieve the effect of lowering blood lipids. Besides, it can also induce the large amount of bile acids to be discharged, as well as promote the oxidative degradation of fat and the reduction of blood lipids. Among them, hawthorn flavonoids also have the effect of preventing the development of atherosclerosis.

Hawthorn and other traditional Chinese medicines can increase the effect of blood lipid lowering, some scholars found that cassia seeds and hawthorn extracts to 1:3 ratio of the strongest lipid-lowering effect. Some scholars use danshen, shouwu, hawthorn water decoction dregs, get the medicinal juice to hyperlipidemia patients to take, the three drugs together drink, work in blood circulation, regulating qi, and can significantly reduce the level of blood lipids. There are also scholars with dry hawthorn, wolfberry boiling water soaked hawthorn wolfberry drink, course of treatment for 6 weeks, the results found that the blood lipid level is significantly reduced.

Because of the clear lipid-lowering effect of hawthorn, many lipid-lowering proprietary Chinese medicines contain hawthorn, and the following pharmacist lists a few:

Hordeum tablets: Hordeum vulgare, Salvia miltiorrhiza, hawthorn, senna, and salts of boneset

Lipitoria tablets: Zedoary, cassia seeds, hawthorn, and the system of He Shou Wu.

Lipids Kang Granules: cassia seeds, wolfberry, mulberry, safflower, hawthorn.

Hawthorn Extract Lipid Reducing Tablets: Hawthorn extract.

Lipoclean capsule: Scabiousia japonica, hawthorn, Artemisia capillaris, Scutellaria baicalensis, Zeligia japonica, rhubarb, and Mucuna pruriens.

Lipid Reducing Tablets: Prepared He Shou Wu, wolfberry, Huang Jing, hawthorn, cassia.

Spleen and Lipid Lowering Granules: hawthorn, zedoary, salvia, zhi ling.

Lipid-lowering Granules: Hawthorn, Radix Polygoni Multiflori, Radix Cassia Obtusifoliae, Radix et Rhizoma Polygoni Multiflori, Radix et Rhizoma Polygoni Multiflori.

Lipid Reducing and Detoxification Capsules: Rheum palmatum, cassia seed, hawthorn, yin chen, gardenia, zedoary, curcuma longa, he shou wu, chai hu.

Lipotropic Pills: Cassia Seed, Hawthorn, Lotus Leaf, Prepared He Shou Wu.

Pu Shen Capsules: He Shou Wu, Pu Huang, Salviae Miltiorrhizae, Rhizoma Ligustici Chuanxiong, Radix Paeoniae Alba, Fructus Crataegi, Rhizoma Zedoariae, Radix et Rhizoma Ginseng.

Hawthorn's function is powerful, and it can be said that there is no adverse reaction found for the time being, but there are still some points that need to be noted:

1, you should try to eat as little as possible of raw hawthorn, especially for people with weak gastrointestinal function. (Raw hawthorn contains tannic acid, which can react with stomach acid to form gastrolith)

2, teeth should be brushed after eating. (After heating, it will change the acid, which is not good for the health of teeth)

3, pregnant women, people with weak spleen and stomach, people with low blood sugar, and children should not eat.

4. Do not eat on an empty stomach.

Because hawthorn has a unique flavor and a variety of health functions, the market is often processed into a variety of foods. However, in the production process, the processing method is different, which may lead to changes in the active ingredients, therefore, it is not certain whether there is still health care (such as lowering blood fat) function, and it is necessary to strengthen the research in this area in the future. Now, some daily edible methods of hawthorn are introduced:

1, hawthorn porridge

Raw material: hawthorn 30~40g, round-grained polished rice 100g, granulated sugar 10g.

Practice: hawthorn into the casserole pan decocted to get the thick juice, remove the dregs, and then add the round-grained polished rice, granulated sugar to cook porridge.

2, hawthorn double ear soup

Ingredients: silver fungus 10g, black fungus 10g, hawthorn 20g, rock sugar 30g.

Method: black fungus, silver fungus soak for a period of time, wash off the dregs, choose clean. Then put black fungus, silver fungus, hawthorn into a pot. Add 500ml of water and cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes. Then add rock sugar, stir until completely melted, out of the pot.

3, hawthorn crucian carp soup

Ingredients: 1 crucian carp, 15g of dried hawthorn, 15g of ginger, 1g of pepper grains, 1 section of white onion, moderate amount of olive oil.

Method: ingredients in addition to hawthorn into the belly of the fish, with olive oil quickly fry fish, heating water not over the fish, put the dried hawthorn, large fire boil 5 minutes, change the fire to cook cook until milky white fish soup.

4, hawthorn rose tea

Ingredients: dry hawthorn 6g, rose 3g.

Practice: make tea to drink.

5, hawthorn lotus leaf tea

Ingredients: hawthorn 5g, lotus leaf 5g, dandelion leaf 5g.

Practice: drink tea.

6, cassia hawthorn bitter tea

Ingredients: hawthorn 5g, cassia 8g, bitter tea 10g, licorice 2g.

Practice: drink tea.

Summary

Due to the gradual increase in the incidence of hyperlipidemia, human beings pay more and more attention to their own health. Our country is rich in hawthorn, and the active substances contained in hawthorn make it have the function of lowering blood lipids, and the food and medicine made from hawthorn will be welcomed and favored by the public.

The hypolipidemic effect of hawthorn is clear, and reasonable combination with other traditional Chinese medicines can increase the hypolipidemic effect.

Hawthorn has a clear lipid-lowering effect.