Study Finds No Evidence of Ginkgo's Purported Cognitive Benefits

DeepOcean

From:    Scientific American   

August 21, 2002

Study Finds No Evidence of Ginkgo's Purported Cognitive Benefits

You can find it at almost any drugstore, supermarket or corner bodega,
not mention on the Internet. But does ginkgo biloba actually sharpen the
minds of healthy adults, as manufacturers suggest? Consumers seem to
think so: sales of the dietary supplement in 1998 amounted to about $310
million in the U.S. alone. Researchers writing today in the Journal of the
American Medical Association, however, report that such claims do not
appear to hold up under scientific scrutiny.
Paul R. Solomon of Williams College and his colleagues
conducted a six-week, double-blind study of 230 healthy adults
ages 60 and older, giving half of the subjects ginkgo and the
other half placebo. Participants completed standardized tests
of learning, memory, attention and concentration before,
during and after the study period. The researchers also
questioned the subjects themselves and their close friends and
family about any perceived shifts in cognitive status. What
they found was that ginkgo recipients fared no better on the
tests than placebo recipients did. "The ginkgo group also did
not differ from the control group in terms of self-reported
memory function or global rating by spouses, friends, and
relatives," they say.
Solomon and his collaborators acknowledge that higher doses of
the supplement or longer periods of exposure might produce the
desired effects. But they conclude that their results "suggest
that when taken following the manufacturer's instructions,
ginkgo provides no measurable health benefit in memory or
related cognitive function to adults with healthy cognitive
function." --Kate Wong