The herbal supplement Ginkgo biloba does not appear to slow the rate of cognitive decline in healthy older people or those with mild cognitive impairment, U.S. researchers said this week.

Their study involved 3,000 people age 72 or older from the USA who were tracked for an average of six years. Half of them took twice-daily doses of 120 milligrams of extract from the leaves of the ginkgo tree and half received a placebo.

Compared with study participants who received a placebo, the use of Ginkgo biloba did not slow cognitive decline in those with normal conditions or those with mild cognitive impairment, the researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The ginkgo product used in the research was made by German-based Schwabe Pharmaceuticals. Here you can see the press release:

“Ginkgo biloba not only improves declining memory but offers specific benefits for other cognitive functions as well” that’s how Dr. Reiner Kaschel, Clinical Neuropsychologist at the University of Osnabrueck, Germany, summarizes the results of a comprehensive new scientific publication.

Internet shopping, online-banking, non-stop heavy traffic, unfamiliar and complicated ticketing machines, PINs for mobile phones and credit cards – our everyday professional and private lives are varied and complex and demand a permanently high degree of mental performance. Because certain cognitive features such as information processing, speed and flexibility of thinking, as well as ability to concentrate tend to decline with age, more and more people feel there is a gap between demands and performance. This is leading to greater interest in possible ways to combat cognitive decline.

• Does Ginkgo biloba improve mental performance in general or are there specific areas of cognitive functions where the extract shows a particular benefit?
• Which specific aspects of memory are strengthened?
• Does Ginkgo biloba also offers benefits for selective attention, executive functioning or intelligence?
  

The review covered all placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized studies between 1980 and 2007, in which function-specific tests for cognitive decline were applied. The study findings were then analyzed for separate areas of mental performance: Memory, attention, executive functions, and intelligence.

Read more www.reuters.com

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