Want to Improve Your Memory? Forget About Gingko Biloba!

One of the "Cadillacs" of traditional medical journals, the Journal of the American Medical Association, more popularly known as JAMA, has hammered another nail in the coffin of Gingko biloba, once considered a fountain of youth for the human brain. No sooner was the study published than a non-profit organization that studies the medicinal uses of plants issued a rebuttal on the rebuke of the mythical memory herb.

The latest study on Gingko biloba, which appeared in this week's issue of JAMA, showed that people who used Gingko biloba did not have any greater cognitive decline than those who were given a faux herbal supplement.

Long a darling of the complimentary medicine world, Gingko biloba has disappointed herbal health advocates since the herb began undergoing scientific scrutiny in the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) studies sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the National Institute on Aging.

The latest Gingko study was the largest ever performed on Gingko biloba. The Gingko study followed more than 3,000 people between the ages of 72 and 96 for more than half a decade, some of whom were provided Ginkgo; others, a placebo. Disappointingly, the people who took the Gingko showed absolutely no differences in their memory, focus or any other measure of cognitive ability than the study participants who took the placebo sugar pill. In other words, older people who want to improve their mind may as well swallow a far less pricey tic tac than go to the health food store and buy some spendy Gingko biloba tablets.

How could Grandma be wrong about Gingko?

On the surface, it appears that Gingko biloba has had a great publicist for the past 1,600 years. The herb's reputation for improving memory and cognitive function is so stellar that Americans shelled out some $107 million to benefit from its magical properties as recently as 2007. Gingko's reputation is so revered that even the traditional medical community was perplexed by the herb's dismal performance in the study. As Dr. Steven DeKosky of the University of Virginia said, "We figured that if [ginkgo] was still in use and still endorsed by people-even if it's only your grandmother-it probably does have some basis to it."

Gingko's failure to show solid scientific evidence of cognitive or memory improvement makes you wonder if the placebo effect of taking Gingko--just the mere thought that Gingko would work--did as much to contribute to the herb's mythic folklore as its actual herbal properties. If people think a pill works, it is more likely to produce the desired result, thanks to the power of the human mind. A large-scale analysis of Food and Drug Administration studies of depressed people, for instance, showed that in some cases placebo anti-depressants worked as well as the Real McCoy in all but severely depressed people.

The results of the latest Gingko study suggest it is possible that Gingko's financial success has been a lucky byproduct of the placebo effect.

Botanical Council rebuts JAMA report, defends Gingko

Before the ink was even dry on the JAMA article, the American Botanical Council (ABC), an organization that evaluates and responds to research about herbs and medicinal plants, issued a rebuttal that was highly critical of JAMA's report. ABC countered there have been many other reputable studies that suggest Gingko biloba does have beneficial effects, especially for people whose cognitive function is already impaired (the JAMA study focused only on cognitively healthy people).

Another problems with the study, according to ABC, is the dosage of Gingko that was used since a 2002 study published in the journal Human Psychopharmacology Clinical and Experimental, which provided study subjects with a higher dosage of Gingko, showed clinically significant improvement even in healthy people. ABC also criticized the spurious double-blind method used in the recent JAMA Gingko study since the placebo was a gelatin capsule and the Gingko was a small coated tablet. Study participants may have guessed which of the two substances they were ingesting.

Mark Blumenthal, executive director of ABC, rebuked the JAMA report. "The value of ginkgo or any dietary supplement cannot be determined on the basis of one study alone," he said. "There are more than 125 clinical trials published on ginkgo extract over the past two decades, with most of them supporting numerous important benefits related to improved circulation and mental function."

In the David and Goliath world of Big Pharma versus boutique herb farms, one wonders if studies that prove popular herbs don't work could be engineered to conclude that only pharmaceutical drugs are effective and herbal medicine is a hoax.

Sources:
http://nccam.nih.gov/news/2008/111808.htm
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/ginkgo/
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/forums/viewthread/11239/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gingko-doesnt-slow-cognit\
http://www.cassmd.com/library/ginkgo.study.resp.html