Effects on cardiovascular system

Review
Hawthorn fruit could play a role in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and congestive heart failure. Many studies have showed that hawthorn fruit may possess anti-ischemia/reperfusion-injury, anti-arrhythmic, hypolipidemic and hypotensive effects, and these beneficial effects may due to the antioxidant flavonoid compounds present in hawthorn fruit.

Effects on blood pressure

Clinical study
Volunteers were randomly assigned to a daily supplement of either: 600 mg magnesium, 500 mg hawthorn fruit extract, a combination of magnesium and hawthorn friut extract, or placebo. At baseline, 5 and 10 weeks of intervention, the anthropometric, dietary assessments and blood pressure measurements were taken at rest, after exercise and after a computer 'stress' test. The results showed a significant reduction in the resting diastolic blood pressure in the hawthorn fruit group, compared with the other groups.

Effect on blood lipid level

Animal study
Hamsters with dyslipidemia and obesity were treated with hawthorn fruit or vehicle for 7 days. The food intake, body weight, adipose tissue weights, and plasma total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) and HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C) were then measured. The food intake, body weights, and weights of both brown and white adipose tissues were significantly reduced in hamsters taking hawthorn fruit. Moreover, the plasma levels of TC, TG and LDL-C were decreased while the HDL-C was increased. These results indicate that hawthorn fruit can improve dyslipidemia or obesity.

Immunomodulatory effect

Animal study
Study was done to investigate the protective effect of ursolic acid from hawthorn fruit to the cyclophosphamide-induced immunosuppressive mice. The results showed that ursolic acid could significantly increase the peripheral white blood cells count, enhance the phagocytosis of peritoneal macrophages and activate the proliferation of splenic lymphocytes.