Ginkgo Biloba Alzheimer’s Treatment

A clinical study of Alzheimer’s patients published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has shown that an extract of the herb Ginkgo biloba caused a marked improvement in the condition of about quarter of the subjects.

A patented extract of the Ginkgo biloba leaf called EGb761, which is available in Australia under the name Tebonin, was evaluated . The double blind study found that EGb761 improved the mental function of patients who had Alzheimer’s disease and multi-infarct dementia within the first 26 weeks of treatment. Conditions of 26 per cent of the patients given EGb761 were found to have improved, while the placebo group showed a significant deterioration in their conditions.

The study report stated: “Comparison of the current results with those reported in a German study testing a higher dose of EGb761 might suggest that an increased dose of EGb761 would result in an even more favourable treatment effect. After a similar treatment duration . . . 240mg EGb761 showed . . . a higher percentage of improved patients, ie 38 per cent of the EGb761 group reached the highest cut-off point on the cognitive scale versus 26 per cent in the current study.”

Study co-author Dr Meinhard Kieser said clinical work had shown that there was a marked difference between the effectiveness of EGb761 and other Ginkgo biloba products. “Previous US research comparing EGb761 against other extracts showed that only EGb761 increased activity in all areas of the brain,” Dr Kieser said.

Other Ginkgo biloba extracts do not have the same composition as EGb761 and the results of this and other studies cannot be extrapolated to any other Ginkgo biloba extract.