Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Medlar is a small brown autumn fruit from the tree Mespilus germanica. In Italy it is called nespolo. The tree is a cousin of the apple, pear and hawthorn.
Picked fruit is hard, sour and harsh. It is left to soften for weeks before eating, a step called bletting. The soft flesh turns brown and sweet, rather like spiced apple sauce.
In European folk use, medlar was both a food and a mild gut remedy. It was also made into jelly, fruit cheese and liqueur.
The honest verdict on evidence is short. There are no good human trials of medlar for any health problem. Traditional use is not proof that something works, and long use is not proof that it is safe.
The main idea behind medlar is astringency, a tightening, drying effect on tissue.
Unripe medlar is high in tannins. Tannins bind to proteins in the mouth and gut lining. That is what makes raw fruit pucker your mouth.
In test tubes, tannins and related plant acids slow the growth of some bacteria. In lab dishes, medlar extracts also mop up free radicals. Whether any of this happens in your body after eating the fruit has not been shown.
Ripe, bletted fruit is soft and rich in pectin, a soluble fibre. Soluble fibre holds water in the gut, and in general it can firm up loose stools. Medlar itself has not been tested for this in people.
So the mechanism talk is laboratory talk. No human trial has shown that medlar treats or prevents any illness.
Medlar is sold mostly as food, not as a supplement.
Common forms: - Fresh fruit, firm from the tree and ripened at home - Bletted fruit, soft and brown, eaten with a spoon - Medlar jelly, jam or fruit cheese - Medlar liqueur or fruit wine - Dried leaf, sold now and then as a tea - Fruit powder or extract, rare and poorly standardised
There is no agreed strength or standard extract. Two products with the same name can differ a lot. Leaf and bark teas were folk items and are far less studied than the fruit.
Medlar was grown and eaten across Europe for well over two thousand years.
Greek and Roman writers described the tree. Medieval monastery and manor gardens kept it as a winter fruit. It was prized because it ripened after the frosts, when little else was left.
English writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare joked about its odd shape and its need to rot before use. Herbals of the time listed it as a cooling, binding fruit.
Folk healers used the firm fruit for loose bowels. Leaf and fruit preparations were used as mouth and throat rinses. Some old texts claimed medlar helped with bladder or kidney gravel.
These are records of what people did, not a recommendation to do it now.
Stop and see a doctor if: - Diarrhoea lasts more than two days, or there is blood, black stool or fever - You get belly pain that keeps getting worse - You get hives, swollen lips or tongue, or wheezing after eating the fruit
Get emergency help at once if someone has swallowed crushed medlar seeds and has headache, dizziness, confusion, vomiting, fast breathing or trouble breathing. These can be signs of cyanide poisoning. Call your local emergency number or poison control.
In the UK, the EU and the US, medlar is an ordinary food. It is not approved as a medicine anywhere. Powders and extracts sold as supplements are not checked for strength or purity the way drugs are.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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