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| Ginkgo biloba is the most prescribed herb in the world, selling more in Europe than all the herbs in the United States combined. What is amazing is that this 200 million year-old tree is now extinct in the wild and only exists as an ornamental plant. You can find one at the S&T bank on 8th and Philadelphia Streets. But don't pick the leaves; unless certain toxins are removed, they are poisonous.
Although ginkgo biloba grew world-wide during the Jurassic period, it survived the ice age only in China, where it was used for coughs, asthma, and acute allergic inflammations. Today, more than 400 scientific studies have been done on ginkgo biloba, making it the most researched herb in the world. Its effectiveness in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease is well documented. Alzheimers patients given ginkgo biloba are more alert and score higher on psychometric tests than patients given a placebo. In essence, ginkgo biloba slows the onset of dementia when taken in the early stages of the disease.
In a French double-blind study, ginkgo biloba was given to patients suffering from migraine headaches. Volunteers were long-term migraine sufferers who had not had success from other therapies. The group given ginkgo biloba reported an 80% cure rate.
A derivative of ginkgo biloba is cyclosporine, known for its immunosuppressive properties. In the United States and Canada, patients undergoing liver, bone marrow, heart, or kidney transplants are given cyclosporine to suppress the activity of white blood cells so that the patient will not reject the transplanted organ.
In 1987, Dr. Donald J. Brown published a study in the journal, Prostaglandins, reporting ginkgo biloba's use in the treatment of asthma as an inhibitor of bronchial constriction. A mixture of three ginkgolides that naturally occurs in ginkgo biloba inhibited bronchial constriction for up to six hours in patients who were given asthma-causing allergens.
Another series of studies was conducted on the effect of ginkgo biloba on the inner ear. Ginkgo biloba increases oxygen flow to the ear by dilating small blood vessels and increasing blood flow. Studies have reported the effectiveness of ginkgo biloba in the treatment of tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, vertigo, and hearing loss associated with anoxia or oxygen deprivation.
Another series of tests studied the vasodilator properties of ginkgo biloba, lowering of blood pressure and expansion of peripheral blood vessels and capillaries, and compared them with the hydrogenated alkaloid vasodilaors, acetylcholine chloride and sodium nicotinate. Ginkgo biloba produced similar effects but results were more consistent and with fewer adverse side effects. In a study of 8,505 hospital patients over a six month period, only .4% reported adverse effects, and all were minor and temporary.
In a series of double-blind studies in the late 1970's, research patients were treated for variety of peripheral vascular diseases with either ginkgo biloba or a placebo. In general, 66% of the patients given ginkgo biloba showed clinical improvement vs 16% with the placebo. Patients with lower limb arteritis, or inflammation of an artery, showed a 100% response rate and volunteers with Raynaud's disease showed a 33% response rate. When compared with the placebo group, the patients taking ginkgo biloba reported less pain (66% on ginkgo vs 16% in the control group), more clearing of ulcerous lesions (100% vs 0%), and increased warmth of the lower limbs (64% vs 19%).
In 1992, Dr. Haas of the Mannheim Clinic at Heidelberg University in Germany, wrote that ginkgo biloba increased blood flow (and therefore oxygen flow) in patients with cerebrovascular disease, not only in the healthy parts of the brain but in the diseased areas as well. Dr. Warburton of the University of Reading in England concluded that a dose of 120 mg daily was "effective in patients with vascular disorders, in all types of dementia and even in patients suffering from cognitive disorders secondary to depression because of beneficial effects on mood."
In 1986, French researcher Dr. D.A. Lebuisson, conducted a double blind study of elderly patients recently diagnosed with macular degeneration. Using a funduscope to measure visual acuity in the most affected eye, refractive power improved by 2.3 diopters in the patients who were given ginkgo biloba, whereas the patients given the placebo improved only 0.6 diopters. Clinical improvements were demonstrable in 9 out of 10 patients given ginkgo biloba, while only 2 out of 10 given the placebo showed improvement.
In a series of studies of patients with hemorrhoids, 86% of those taking ginkgo biloba showed improvement. In a study of 20 patients, rectal bleeding was stopped in 12 patients and considerably reduced in 4 more.
Ginkgo biloba is well known as a vasodilator, particularly in the smaller vessels and capillaries. In a 1989 study of 39 men with impotence who had not responded to injections of papaverine, 50% of the group given ginkgo biloba were able to sustain an erection. Of the remaining group, 45% showed improvement when given both ginkgo biloba and papaverine.
Copyright 2001 by Chip Engelmann
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