Don't look a gift horse chestnut in the mouth.
This story has nothing to do with the type of horse you saddle up to ride. It is, in fact, about an extract that, no matter how savvy a supplement buyer you are, you've probably never heard of before.
Horse chestnut (aesculus hippo-castanum) is a species of large deciduous tree native to the Balkan Peninsula (northern Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc.) that now grows throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The most familiar is the common horse chestnut (or buckeye as it is known in America) which was introduced to the British Isles early in the 17th century.
Horse chestnut seeds, leaves, bark and flowers have been used for centuries to treat a variety of conditions and diseases. Today, mainly the extract of the horse chestnut seed is used for treating chronic venous insufficiency (a condition in which the veins in the legs don't efficiently return blood to the heart), which is associated with varicose veins, leg pain, ankle swelling and night-time leg cramping. The extract is also sometimes used for treating hemorrhoids. Although these conditions aren't likely to be a problem for you, the active ingredient in horse chestnut, aescin (or escin), provides benefits that interest bodybuilders as well - increased fat loss, greater definition due to less water retention and greater vascularity.
New research from Chungnam National University (Republic of Korea) found that aescin from horse chestnut can help with fat loss through a number of mechanisms. Scientists reported in a 2008 issue of Chemical if Pharmaceutical Bulletin that mice fed a high fat diet supplemented with aescin for 11 weeks didn't gain bodyfat, while mice not receiving aescin did. The researchers concluded that aescin prevents the absorption of dietary fat by inhibiting release of the enzyme that breaks down fat in the intestines. Although this has yet to be proved true in humans, the gastrointestinal systems of mice and humans are similar, leading us to believe there's a very good chance that aescin can prevent fat absorption in humans, too.
Horse chestnut can help you not only carve out more muscular definition by reducing levels of bodyfat but also strengthen your veins, which can prevent water retention and enhance vascularity. During exercise, your muscles demand more oxygen and nutrients. The heart then increases its beat rate and the amount of blood it ejects with each pulse. The veins respond by stiffening so more blood can return to the heart more quickly. But some of the fluid from the blood in the veins actually slips out through gaps in the vein walls and lodges between the muscles and skin.
For a bodybuilder, fluid retention is a negative thing for two reasons: one, the fluid that gets in this space blurs muscle definition; and two, fluid loss causes the veins to shrink and you to appear less vascular. Aescin decreases fluid loss from the veins by narrowing the gaps in the vein walls, as confirmed in clinical studies. Consider adding horse chestnut when you're trying to get lean, especially when you want to really dial it in and achieve sharp definition. Look for supplements that supply horse chestnut standardized to 50-100 mg of aescin (or escin) and take twice a day between meals. You can also find horse chestnut in cream or gel form so you can directly apply it to areas where you want to bring out muscle definition and vascularity.
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