Ginkgo biloba for Preventing Cognitive Decline in Older Adults

Journal of the American Medical Association

Vol. 302 No. 24, December 23/30, 2009

A Randomized Trial

ABSTRACT

Context The herbal product Ginkgo biloba is taken frequently with the intention of improving cognitive health in aging. However, evidence from adequately powered clinical trials is lacking regarding its effect on long-term cognitive functioning.

Objective To determine whether G biloba slows the rates of global or domain-specific cognitive decline in older adults.

Design, Setting, and Participants The Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of 3069 community-dwelling participants aged 72 to 96 years, conducted in 6 academic medical centers in the United States between 2000 and 2008, with a median follow-up of 6.1 years.

Intervention Twice-daily dose of 120-mg extract of G biloba (n = 1545) or identical-appearing placebo (n = 1524).

Main Outcome Measures Rates of change over time in the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination (3MSE), in the cognitive subscale of the Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS-Cog), and in neuropsychological domains of memory, attention, visual-spatial construction, language, and executive functions, based on sums of z scores of individual tests.

Conclusion Compared with placebo, the use of G biloba, 120 mg twice daily, did not result in less cognitive decline in older adults with normal cognition or with mild cognitive impairment.

Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00010803

INTRODUCTION

I enjoy cooking with garlic.

When using garlic, crush it and let it sit for several minutes to allow all the enzymes to flourish.

It is best to use garlic raw, in dishes without cooking.

Determination and size-fractional distribution of the elements in garlic.

Zhu Y, Inagaki K, Haraguchi H, Chiba K. Anal Sci. 2009 Jan;25(1):137-40.

Environmental Standard Section, Inorganic Analytical Chemistry Division, National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8563, Japan. yb-zhu@aist.go.jp

Analytical Sciences Vol. 25 (2009) , No. 1 p.137, by Yanbei ZHU, Kazumi INAGAKI, Hiroki HARAGUCHI and Koichi CHIBA

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The Ultraman World Championships was this past weekend (Nov. 27-29). Ultraman is an athletic endurance event so extreme that just to qualify, you have to complete an Ironman race.   Two of the participants this year will be Richard Roll and Jason Lester. They are both 100% vegan, and credit their success to a plant-strong lifestyle.

Think vegan can win in this most extreme of all endurance athletic events?  It can – Richard Roll won day 1 at Ultraman.   He performed a 6.2 mile swim plus a 90 mile bike ride in 7 hours, 57 minutes.. which was the best of the day! From his twitter page :

Two words: PLANT STRONG. For those who think u can’t excel athletically on a plant based diet, think again.

References:

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Is it possible to be a highly-fit endurance athlete eating only 100% vegan? Yes, here’s the proof.  Of course, this is hardcore for the Ultraman (a three-day, 320 mile (515-km) annual endurance race):

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