Ginkgo doesn’t protect against Alzheimer’s

Ginkgo is commonly taken to improve memory, but a new study says that the herb doesn’t prove helpful to prevent dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Steven DeKosky, who led the study, says: “We have discovered that a standardized dose of ginkgo biloba doesn’t slow down the incidence rate of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease when it was given over a period of time.”

The study has been published in the Nov.19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In the United States, Alzheimer’s disease is affecting almost 5 people at present. Currently, no medications have been approved for the primary prevention of the disease. However, some previous short term trials have shown that there may be a slight benefit from ginkgo for people with dementia. A study finds that ginkgo biloba of worth $250 million is consumed in the United States every year.

In this study, almost 3100 community-dwelling adults (aged 75 and over) were included and most of them had normal cognition at the beginning of the study, while there were signs of mild cognitive impairment in almost 482 people at the beginning of the study.

In the study, the researchers randomly assigned the study volunteers to either receive a twice-daily dose of 120 milligrams of ginkgo biloba extract or a placebo. Then the researchers assessed the signs for dementia in study participants after every six months.  The researchers didn’t find any significant difference in dementia signs in these two groups.