Break the myth! US team: Ginkgo has no anti-aging or dementia effects

We often forget someone's name or phone number at the critical moment, and others laugh at us and say that we should eat "Ginkgo" to prevent dementia. But does Ginkgo extract really have the effect of slowing down brain aging? That’s not necessarily true! A long-term study in the United States found that ginkgo may have certain healing ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine, but from the perspective of Western medicine, ginkgo has no so-called effect of preventing intellectual decline. Next time you spend a lot of money on ginkgo health products, you may want to think twice.

Can Ginkgo cure Alzheimer's disease? The American medical team proved it is ineffective! Ginkgo trees in autumn (left), ginkgo leaves (right) (Image/Source: Wikipedia)

A paper recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out that the University of Pittsburgh conducted a six-year study on more than 3,000 elderly people aged 72 to 96. Each person in the experimental group took two ginkgo pills a day, while the control group took the same dose of vitamin pills. After six years, the experimenters were surprised to find that there was no obvious difference between the two groups in terms of intelligence or cognitive ability. In other words, ginkgo has no way to improve the symptoms of slowing cognitive ability in the elderly, and of course it has no effect on preventing Alzheimer's disease.

Ginkgo, also known as "white fruit" or "fir-sun tree", has been a traditional medicine in China and Japan for thousands of years. Past studies have shown that the "ginkgolides" in ginkgo can reduce the function of blood clotting, promote blood flow, and thus reduce the chance of blood vessel blockage. In addition, it also contains antioxidant ingredients that reduce the production of harmful chemicals in the body.

Starting in the 18th century, Europeans introduced ginkgo trees from Japan for cultivation, and later extracted "ginkgo biloba" from ginkgo leaves, which is said to be able to fight against the symptoms caused by "cerebral insufficiency", that is, the blood flow ability becomes poor and cannot be smoothly transmitted to the brain or limbs, causing memory and/or cognitive impairment, and even symptoms such as numbness and soreness in the hands and feet; but the results of this study in the United States almost completely overturned the previous "anti-aging myth" about ginkgo. Many medical staff therefore suggested starting with daily diet and sleep habits to truly prevent the phenomenon of brain decline.