Horse Chestnut Power (Aesculus hippocastanum) 60 capsules: K
Certified Potency Horse Chestnut Seed Extract combined with other herbs proven to contribute to venous health: Butcher's Broom Root, Ginger Root and Rutin. Horse Chestnut-Power is the highest quality, most potent and most effective form of Horse Chestnut Extract available. Horse Chestnut-Power is standardized with the greatest preferred concentration of naturally balanced active principles, among them Escins, while retaining and enhancing all the whole-plant synergistic benefits. Escins are a complex mixture of triterpenoids, a novel class of compounds in plants like the bioflavonoids and carotenoids. Horse Chestnut extract has a long historical use for varicose veins and hemorrhoids. It demonstrates venotonic, anti-edema, anti-inflammatory and capillary permeability reducing actions. It may also strengthen blood vessel walls and capillaries. Horse Chestnut extract is approved as an over-the-counter phytomedicine in Germany and is widely used to support circulatory health. Horse Chestnut extract is one of the most common herbal remedies prescribed in Germany, after Ginkgo biloba and St. John's wort. Scientists examining the seeds of the horse chestnut identified the main therapeutic ingredient, aescin, which is sometimes described as a group of chemically related substances called ''escin.'' Aescin reduces inflammation and tones up vein walls, allowing blood to flow back to the heart more easily. It appears to accomplish this by plugging up minute holes and microscopic leaks in the tiniest blood vessels, the venules, and in the capillaries. In reinforcing the strength of veins, horse chestnut is believed to also promote their elasticity and prevent swelling and long-term damage to them. Horse Chestnut extract has been shown to be useful for varicose veins and other leg vein problems. Symptoms of varicose veins and the closely related condition known as chronic venous insufficiency--swollen legs, pain, and heaviness in the legs, and calf cramps (especially at night)--may well subside with horse chestnut treatment. In parts of Europe, the herbal extract has been intensively studied for this use in particular, with numerous positive clinical trials cited in the medical literature. Investigators who reviewed the findings of 13 clinical trials done on the extract concluded it was clearly better than a placebo in relieving vein-related leg problems such as varicose veins. The analysis was published in a 1998 issue of the well-known scientific journal Archives of Dermatology. Horse Chestnut extract has been shown to reduce hemorrhoids. Painful and inflamed hemorrhoids may subside with horse chestnut seed extract for the same reasons that the remedy is so effective for varicose veins. By strengthening and toning the body's veins, as well as actually lessening swelling and fluid retention in the body, the hemorrhoid--a swollen vein itself--will be more likely to recede. The narrowing of vessels observed in small animal studies of butcher's br