04.24.07
Indication: Congestive heart failure
Source: American College of Cardiology meeting, New Orleans, March 2007
Research: Researchers recruited a total of 2681 patients from 156 medical centers in Europe to test the impact of Crataegus Extract WS 1442 (hawthorne extract) on advanced congestive heart failure. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either WS 1442 or placebo for a period of two years. This was in addition to medications patients were already taking for heart failure.
Results: Patients taking WS 1442 experienced a 20% reduction in cardiac related death. But while the lives of these patients were extended by four months in the first 18 months of the study, after two years the same number of people in both groups had died. The extract was not effective in preventing death due to progressive heart failure, fatal heart attack, non-fatal heart attack and hospitalization because of heart failure.