HHS HealthBeat (January 6, 2010)

Thinking again about Ginkgo

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

People who sell the herbal supplement Ginkgo biloba say it can help older people hold onto their ability to think clearly. But researchers who tested that say Ginkgo didn’t live up to the sales claims.

The researchers looked at data on more than 3,000 people ages 72 to 95 from 2000 to 2008. Half took Ginkgo; half did not. All took tests of their thinking abilities.

At the University of Virginia, Dr. Steven DeKosky:

[Dr. Steven DeKosky speaks] "We find no evidence that Ginkgo, over this long period of time, made a difference in whether someone’s slow change in memory function as a function of normal aging was affected at all by the medication."

The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 7, 2011