Bilberry Extract - Your Supplement Questions Answered
About Bilberry:
Bilberry Plant
A close relative of the blueberry this North Europe native has been in use for hundreds of years for its medicinal properties as well as for food. Anthocyanosides inside the bilberry’s pigments have wonderful antioxidant powers. These powerful chemicals attack harmful free radicals inside your body that cause cell damage. Heart disease, macular degeneration, cancer and other life changing illnesses can be prevented or slowed down with the use of antioxidants. Loaded with digestible vitamin C the bilberry extract has more than just antioxidants.
Patients who suffer from chronic venous insufficiency have participated in studies that show improvements in symptoms. Chronic venous insufficiency is when valves in veins, which carry blood to the heart, have sustained damage. Bilberry is also useful in the lowering of blood sugar levels in diabetes patients.
Not pleasant to experience or to talk about but great to have a natural medicine for diarrhea suffers has been treated for centuries using bilberry extracts. Rich with powerful anti-inflammatory and astringent for tightening and constricting tissue bilberry is a well-known intestinal inflammation supplement.
Healthy Bilberries
Those seeking to improve their vision may have run across anthocyanosides in other fruits and extracts, which the bilberry fruit is chock full of. In fact during WWII, British fighter jet pilots ate bilberry jam to improve their night vision. Perhaps this little berry helped change the course of history?
Bilberry fruit grows from a perennial shrub that reaches full size around sixteen inches in height. Notable for its oval pointed leaves punctuated with tiny white and pink flowers. The bilberry plant blooms during the months of April through June with its dark purple berries ripe for harvesting by the late summer. A wonderful and healthy family of berries is related to bilberry such as blueberry, cranberry, huckleberry and other delicious berries.
How Does Bilberry Improve Health?
The primary health components of bilberry fruit are anthocyanosides. Helping to build strong blood vessels and aid with improved circulation throughout the body these compounds prevent the clumping of blood platelets, reducing the risk of blood clots. Antioxidant properties attack harmful free radicals, while the anthocyanidins boost the production of rhodopsin a pigment that increases night vision and allows the eye faster adjustments to changes in light.
How to Eat/Ingest:
You can eat bilberries fresh picked or canned or dried. You can also use it to make bilberry tea. You should look for bilberry extracts that are standardized which means they have been tested to ensure they contain at least 25 percent anthocyanidin.
Words of Advise and Warning:
Natural cures are nature’s medicine but along with powerful cures can come side effects. Make sure when taking herbs, extracts and other supplements that you seek the advice of a health care provider to avoid adverse side effects.
Is It Safe For Children?
Children ages two and older can take bilberry extract for diarrhea with the supervision of your physician.
Adult Dosing Information:
80-120 mg twice daily is the average dose.
For the relief of diarrhea mix five to ten grams of crushed dried bilberry with 2/3rds a cup of cold water. Boil and strain and drink the remaining liquid. Do not use fresh bilberries only dried ones for diarrhea treatments.
For improved circulation and eye sight eighty to four hundred and eighty mg split into three or two doses daily.
Precautions
Bilberry fruit and extract are deemed as generally safe, with no known harmful side effects. It is worth noting that bilberry leaf and extract should not be taken in large amounts over an extended period of time. Tannins in the leaf can be toxic with extended use.
Diabetes and Bilberry:
As with any new medication or herbal supplement, use caution when taking medication for diabetes and ingesting bilberry. Bilberry can lower blood sugar increasing the effects of any diabetes medication you may already be taking. Similar to other blood sugar lowering herbs such as ginseng, garlic and ginger bilberry combined with other herbs can result in hypoglycemia so doctor’s supervision is always suggested.
