Supplement
Horse chestnut is a tree whose seed extract contains aescin, a compound thought to firm up vein walls and limit fluid leaking from tiny blood vessels. People mostly look at it for chronic venous insufficiency, when leg veins struggle to send blood back up, and the evidence is strong: a trial of 297 people found signs of the condition improved. Not every measure moved, though, since HDL cholesterol showed no clear difference in a very small study of 40 people.
Sources: PMID 22419768
- Updated
- How we grade
- 3 studies cited
- Best evidence
- Grade A
- Conditions studied
- 2
- Outcomes
- 6
- Graded outcomes
- 1001
Evidence by condition
- Strong
- Moderate
- Limited
- Very limited
| Grade | Outcome | Effect | Size | Studies | People | Studies list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chronic Venous Insufficiency Signs Moderate Improvement | Improves (the measure goes up) | Moderate effect | 297 people | |||
| High-density lipoprotein (HDL) No effect | NoneNo effect | 40 people | ||||
| Leg Edema | Improves (the measure goes down) | 3 studies | 297 people | |||
| Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) | Improves (the measure goes down) | 40 people | ||||
| Pain | Improves (the measure goes down) | 543 people | ||||
| Grade | Outcome | Effect | Size | Studies | People | Studies list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hemorrhoids Symptoms | Improves (the measure goes down) | 1 study | 72 people | |||
Studies that measured hemorrhoids symptoms | ||||||
Key findings
- Chronic Venous Insufficiency SignsImproves (the measure goes up)
- High-density lipoprotein (HDL)
Shop the evidence-backed picks
Third-party tested Horse Chestnut products, in the forms the graded studies used where we can match them.
- Grade A
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Studies cited
3 studies from PubMed