Ginkgo Biloba Not a Wonder Drug, After All
Ginkgo Biloba Not a Wonder Drug, After All
Ask anyone knows who’s ever taken echinacea for a cold, had their chakras balanced by a Reiki healer, put their herbalist on speed dial, or watched the Man burn on the Playa: ginkgo biloba is as good as brain food.
Proponents in the United States and Europe, where ginkgo is massively popular, have long argued that the herb improves circulation, combats dementia, and protects cells with its antioxidants. Even the Mayo Clinic’s online reference cites “promising early evidence” of ginkgo’s efficacy against everything from altitude sickness and PMS to macular degeneration.
The Chinese herb is derived from one of the oldest tree species in the world—a “living fossil,” to borrow Darwin’s term—and has been used in traditional medicine for thousands of years. A 17th century German botanist discovered the plant growing in Japanese monasteries and introduced it to the West. Goethe wrote a poem to his ginkgo tree, and Frank Lloyd Wright had one planted in his front yard. It’s said that a ginkgo tree sprouted from the ashes at Hiroshima.
Beautiful and resilient, then, is ginkgo—but not efficacious. According to a study by French researchers that appears this month in The Lancet, the popular alternative medicine does nothing to prevent Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly.