Rose hips are the berries from the dog rose plant which grows wild in many locations. While the dog rose petals tend to get more attention for potpourri and so on, the real value is in the hips or berries.

Antioxidants

Oxidative stress is bad. This happens when free radicals overtake the body’s antioxidant defenses. There is a greater chance for oxidative stress in modern life due to factors like pollution, stress, toxins, and more.

When the body cannot keep balance it is subject to oxidative stress and damaging free radicals. Antioxidants from foods can supply the body with extra help.

If antioxidants were a class system then berries would be at the top. And the antioxidant monarch of the berries is rosehips with over 35 mmol/100g. Probably the next best berry in your supermarket is the blueberry with about 7 mmol/100g.

Antiinflammatory

There is ongoing research in this area to address problems from inflammation, especially in the joints. In particular, studies have focused on osteoarthritis and found patients reported improvement with rosehips over placebos.

Heart Health

Use of rosehips reduced systolic blood pressure as well as total plasma cholesterol in a study of obese individuals. While rosehips did not produce weight loss they did significantly lower risks for heart disease.

Diabetes

Studies on laboratory mice have shown that rosehips can prevent obesity, diabetes and associated diseases. In these studies, researchers did establish that rosehip powder reversed obesity and glucose intolerance (i.e., diabetes or pre-diabetes).