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Bilberry Common Name whortleberry and huckleberry. Bilberry has been used for approximately 1,000 years in traditional European medicine. Bilberry leaf is used for thoroughly different conditions, including diabetes. Bilberry has been used for centuries, both medicinally and as a food in jams and pies. Bilberry is also used in connotation with vascular and blood disorders and shows positive effects when treating varicose veins, thrombosis, and angina. There are additionally 100 species with similar names and fruit throughout the Europe, Asia and North America.
Bilberry's fruit have flavonoids and anthocyanin, that serve to prevent capillary fraility, thin the blood, and stimulate the release of vasodilators. Bilberry have Vitamins A and C, offering antioxidant protection which can help prevent free radical damage to the eyes. Anthocyanin, a natural antioxidant, also lowers blood pressure, reduces clotting and improves blood supply to the nervous system. Bilberry also contains glucoquinine which has the capacity to lower blood sugar. Bilberry has long been a remedy for poor foresight and "night blindness." Bilberry is a perennial shrub which grows to over 16 inches in height. It has oval, sharped leaves and small pink and white flowers, that bloom from April through June. In the late summer, its dark purple berries are ripe to pick.
Bilberry fruit is also rich in tannins, a stuff that acts as an astringent. The fruits are astringent, and are especially worthy in diarrhoea and dysentery, in the form of syrup. The fruit is helpful in scurvy and urinary malady, and when bruised with the roots and steeped in gin has diuretic properties inestimable in dropsy and gravel. The ancients used them widely, and Dioscorides spoke highly of them. They are also used for discharges, and as antigalactagogues. Quinic acid is present in the leaves of Bilberry. The leaves can be used in the same way as those of UvaUrsi. Few claim which bilberry fruit improves night vision, but clinical studies have not shown this to be true.
Bilberry fruit is regarded safe. Nonetheless, high doses of bilberry leaf or leaf extract are considered unsafe; animal studies have shown high doses to be toxic. Do not take bilberry without first talking to your doctor if you have a bleeding or blood clotting disorder. Bilberries were also congregated at Lughnassadh, the first traditional harvest festival of the year, as celebrated by the Gaelic people. The crop of billberries was said to betokened how well the rest of the crops would fare in their harvests later in the year.
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