High Cranberry
Quick Facts
- What it is: High cranberry, better known as cramp bark, is the dried bark of Viburnum opulus, used in folk practice for cramps.
- Main uses: Period pain, Muscle cramps, Cramping gut pain
- Active ingredients: Scopoletin, Aesculetin, Salicosides, Tannins, Arbutin
- Forms: Dried bark for decoction, Tea bags and blends, Tincture, Capsules and tablets, Topical creams
- Time to effect: Within about an hour if it helps at all; it may do nothing.
- Side effects: Usually mild stomach upset, nausea or loose stools; raw berries can cause heavy vomiting.
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What is High Cranberry?
High cranberry is the dried bark of Viburnum opulus, a shrub found in Europe, Asia and North America. Herbalists know it as cramp bark. It is taken as a tea, tincture or capsule, mostly for period pain and muscle cramps.
The name causes confusion. This plant is not a true cranberry, and it is not the berry sold for bladder health. The red berries are a food in parts of Eastern Europe once cooked, but the bark is the part used as a remedy.
Here is the honest verdict. Human trials of cramp bark are close to non-existent. Long use in American folk and Eclectic practice is tradition, and tradition is not proof that it works or that it is safe.
How does High Cranberry work?
Nobody has shown in people how cramp bark works, or that it works at all.
Most of what is claimed comes from the laboratory. In test-tube work, extracts of Viburnum opulus bark have relaxed strips of smooth muscle, the muscle found in the womb and gut.
Scopoletin, a plant coumarin in the bark, has eased muscle spasm in animal tissue. Whether that happens in a person with period pain is not known. How much reaches your muscles from a cup of tea has not been measured.
The bark also holds salicylates, aspirin-like compounds. In theory these could thin the blood a little. That effect has not been tested in people taking cramp bark, so treat it as a caution rather than a benefit.
What forms does High Cranberry come in?
Cramp bark products are made from the bark, not the fruit.
The usual forms are:
Loose dried bark, simmered in water as a decoction. Tea bags, often blended with other herbs. Liquid tincture in alcohol or glycerine.
Capsules and tablets of powdered bark. Now and then, a cream or salve sold for aching muscles.
Cooked berry jams, syrups and juices are eaten as food in parts of Eastern Europe. They are a different product from the bark remedy. Raw berries are not food and can upset your stomach.
Where it comes from:
Eclectic doctors in nineteenth-century America listed Viburnum opulus bark as an antispasmodic, meaning something given to ease muscle spasm. They used it for period pain, leg cramps and griping in the gut.
Some also gave it, often with black haw, to women thought to be at risk of miscarriage. That practice rested on bedside opinion, not trials. It is not something to copy at home.
The bark was listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia around the turn of the twentieth century. It later dropped out as drug standards tightened. British, Australian and North American herbalists kept using it.
Who should avoid High Cranberry?
- Do not use if you are pregnant. Old practice used it in pregnancy, but safety has never been shown.
- Do not use if you are breastfeeding.
- Do not use if you are allergic to aspirin or other salicylates (aspirin-like compounds).
- Do not use if you take warfarin, apixaban, rivaroxaban, clopidogrel or another blood thinner, unless your doctor agrees.
- Do not give it to a child or teenager who has a fever or a viral illness, because of the aspirin-like compounds and the risk of Reye's syndrome (a rare but serious illness affecting the liver and brain).
- Never eat the raw berries, and keep the plant away from young children.
- Avoid it if you have had calcium oxalate kidney stones (the most common type of kidney stone).
- Avoid it in the two weeks before any planned surgery.
- Do not use if you have liver or kidney disease without asking your doctor first.
- Do not use it in place of treatment for period pain that a doctor has not yet assessed.
When should you see a doctor?
Stop taking it and get medical advice if you notice any of these.
See a doctor if you have unusual bruising, bleeding gums, nosebleeds or blood in your stool or urine. Also see a doctor if period pain is getting worse, or if pain comes with fever or heavy bleeding.
Get urgent care for swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, a widespread rash, or trouble breathing. Get urgent care if someone, especially a child, has eaten raw berries and is vomiting repeatedly or cannot keep fluids down.
Is High Cranberry legal where you live?
In the United States it is sold as a dietary supplement. The FDA has not approved it to treat any condition. In the UK, EU, Canada and Australia it is sold as a food or herbal supplement, and products are not assessed for effect the way medicines are.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
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