reviewed by X. Li, Ph. D.
(credential)
Dementia, characterized as progressive loss of cognition or memory, is a major
symptom suffered by millions of Alzheimer's disease patients. Currently no treatment has been found to cure
Alzheimer's disease or to halt its progression.
Multiple clinical trials have been conducted to study the effect of the standardized ginkgo biloba extract
on dementia. Most of these trials are so-called placebo-controlled, double-blind, and randomized trials
that are designed to comply with the strict requirement of FDA. In such trials, patients are randomly
divided into two groups, one group receives the experimental drug and the other receives the dummy.
Neither patients nor researchers know if he or she is taking the drug or dummy.
Earlier trials were mostly conducted in Europe by different researchers and trial sizes were relatively small.
Patients were given 120 mg to 240 mg ginkgo biloba extract daily for at least 3 months.
Mental performance of patients were assessed before and after trials with multiple measurements.
While the results were mixed, most trials concluded that patients treated with the ginkgo biloba extract
showed improvement in mental performance statistically significant over the patients received the placebo. Two systematic analyses
of these trials both agreed that evidence is good to support that ginkgo is effective in delaying clinical
cognitive deterioration in dementia 1, 2.
So far, the largest trial was conducted in USA.
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Reference
1. Oken BS, Storzbach DM, Kaye JA. The efficacy of Ginkgo biloba on cognitive function in Alzheimer
disease. Arch Neurol. 1998 55:1409-15.
2. Ernst E, Pittler MH. Ginkgo biloba for dementia: a systematic review of double-blind, placebo-
controlled trials. Clin Drug Invest. 1999 17:301-308.
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