Ginkgo Biloba Fails Against Dementia: No Surprise Whatsoever

More than 20 years ago I collected about a thousand scientific research references on Ginkgo biloba. I was curious about the widespread advertising of Ginkgo products for memory and other cognitive issues. What I found was that research on the memory effects of this herb were, at best, very weak. From that point onward I used this topic as an example in my university classes regarding the disconnect between research and marketing.

In spite of what I believe was already well-established knowledge, about 8 years ago our dear old federal government handed out a gigantic research grant (more than $36 million!) for further study of this topic. Unfortunately, the research appears to have been poorly designed and guaranteed to come up with negative results. It came as no surprise to me, therefore, that newspapers headlines citing the failure of Ginkgo biloba to have any effect on dementia started popping up in newspapers nationwide.

The question I have is, why was this study ever funded in the first place? It had no merit beforehand. And now the headlines give a bad name to a valuable herb whose best use is for treating intermittent claudication and other vascular disorders. Of course, intermittent claudication isn’t sexy enough to take to market. Most people never even heard of this disorder.

The Scientific Method Loses Again

Unfortunately, the use of the scientific method for generating multiple testable hypotheses is nowhere to be found in this latest negative megastudy on herbal medicine. If you are not familiar with what this means, then you are in good company. Editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association apparently don’t, either. They accepted the Ginkgo dementia research article for publication on December 23, 2009, that completely fails to use the scientific method.

Indeed, the modus operandi of the lead government agency in support of this kind of research (i.e., NCCAM, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health) is to hand out grants for poorly designed studies that always lead to negative results.

What is the Goal of Ginkgo Biloba Dementia Research?

The result of this research undermines the annual $250 million industry for Ginkgo biloba memory products. By itself this is not a bad thing, in my opinion. It merely confirms the body of research that already existed. As such, the latest research looks like a grand waste of time and money to me.

By the way, one thing that we will never know from this study is whether there might have been a dose-response effect. The researchers started out with a dose of 120 milligrams twice per day as the only possible dosage level. Would twice that amount have shown a positive effect? Or three times that amount? We have no way to know. Dose-dependent effects are curiously missing from almost all such research funded by NCCAM. The better to ensure negative results, I suppose.

All in all, this is yet another example of expensive bad science that undermines the value of a good medicinal herb.

All the best in natural health,

Dr. D