Gingko Biloba

[Former castleva]

Still warm;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031111070042.htm

Older;
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0005D1A1-2400-1E64-A98A809EC5880105&chanID=sa008

[Tak]

Just goes to show that these kinds of studies should be conducted by statisticians and not medical doctors.

[looking_up]

http://pulsemed.org/memconcherbs.htm

"Memory and Concentration Herbs (and Why Gingko Doesn't Always Work)
By Brian Benjamin Carter, MSci, LAc
Brian is an author of international renown and public speaker. He is currently writing his book Chinese Medicine: A Practical Guide to Optimal Healing. Brian practices acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine in sunny San Diego, California.

When reading, I can't seem to focus or retain information as I once did. I was wondering if you had any suggestions, herbal remedies, or insight to offer. I appreciate your assistance.
Memory function is a complex issue that an overly simplistic herbal approach cannot solve.

Why Gingko Doesn’t Always Work For Memory
Popular magazines said that gingko was the herbal memory cure, but people's experience and science have not borne this out. I'm not surprised. In Chinese medicine, we recognize that one symptom can be have multiple causes. We have to look for the root, and look at the surrounding symptoms and signs to find the appropriate cure.

Your memory loss/concentration could be due to something that gingko can address, or to something else. If you give it to a bunch of people without first differentiating the cause of their problem, you won't know who will get better and who won't. Although gingko is a Chinese herb, we generally don't use it for memory or concentration problems. It does "move the blood," though, so problems due to "blood stagnation" might improve with it."


I'm not posting this to debate how TCM works with someone who has not studied TCM, but to point out that you can't just take an herb out of the traditional context in which it is applied and use it like it's Tylenol or a Centrum multivitamin.

[Former castleva]

I'm not posting this to debate how TCM works with someone who has not studied TCM, but to point out that you can't just take an herb out of the traditional context in which it is applied and use it like it's Tylenol or a Centrum multivitamin.

Heh.I don´t think that´s the case but in order to establish a foundation for-,or remove it,the comfort zone of the subject has to be penetrated.
It is said,as far as I read,that the herb supposedly treats memory (on vague grounds we are,but),would you not like to test the hypothesis?

[looking_up]

OK - yes, test the gingko, but don't for a minute think it has anything to do with TCM.

[Former castleva]

Hmmm.So is your conclusion that the whole TCM is outside of very basic scientific testing? Non-testable even? Not saying that those are your points,yet.That´s what I´ve been arguing for before,to some degree.

[Vash]

My memory sucks. 'Specially on GB. Once took seventeen, one every 15 minutes, cuz I didn't know I'd just taken one.

(sly Memento reference)

[vikinggoddess]

Waves to FC.

I went through the Chinese Materia Medica (over 350 herbs) with a stellar Chinese herbalist in a TCM school. She pretty much just ignored Gingko leaves, as if they weren't really worth mentioning. Maybe she mentioned something about them moving some blood when someone asked about memory. We did however cover the Gingko Nuts extensively. Heres the info.:

Yin Xing "Silver Apricot" AKA Bai Guo "White Fruit" (Sm. Gingko Bilobae)

Sweet, bitter, astringent, neutral temperature, slightly toxic
Goes to Lung and Kidney

Functions and clinical use: Astringes Lung qi, expels phlegm and stops wheezing; for wheezing with coughing and copious sputum

Use nutritionally for acute or chronic asthma:

Preparation: Crush with out shell, put in cold water and cook with chicken.
10 nuts per chicken or 20-30 nuts per 2 chickens (traditionally with the small black-boned chickens)
for an adult 10 pieces is okay, for a child 5 pieces.
One can eat this dish 2-3 X per week if ill.

Dosage in decoction is 6-10g, again must be crushed before use

Cautions: -dangerous when consumed raw in large dosage
-not for use with excess conditons (this is based on Chinese medical theory which differentiating a patient's condition as deficieny or excess)
-not for cough with difficult expectoration of sputum


Also you practitioners/students and of course anyone else are invited to come play on my server as I just added a little forum too. Hoping to go into a little more depth on various techniques, sharing case studies, discussing classics and modern Chinese med. philosophy, etc. http://chinesetherapeutics.org/phorum/index.php

[vikinggoddess]

BTW, that info is from Dr. Li Jin, OMD from Su & Jin Family Acupuncture and Herb Clinic in Seattle. Great Drs.

[looking_up]

"Hmmm.So is your conclusion that the whole TCM is outside of very basic scientific testing? Non-testable even? Not saying that those are your points,yet.That´s what I´ve been arguing for before,to some degree."

No, I'm not saying that TCM is outside of scientific testing, but this is how I understand things:

A TCM doctor will not prescribe the same herbal formula (never just one herb, far as I know) to two different people just because they have the same symptom(s), unless, they are suffering from the same sort of imbalance. Different imbalances can cause the same sort of symptoms. So in order to test the efficacy of an herbal formula for a particular condition/symptom, you'd have to make sure that the underlying cause of the symptom was the same in all of the subjects. That's not very likely. So it proves/disproves very little to say "herb X did not consistently help people with [insert symptom]". I believe that TCM treatments do have scientific explanations, but you have to understand the rationale for why certain treatments are selected. This means you have to understand how TCM diagnoses illness.

I hope this makes sense, I"m not trying to tell you you are wrong, and my understanding of TCM is still very shallow. I just hope I am helping someone to see something from a slightly different point of view.

Thanks. Have a good weekend, FC!

[Former castleva]

OK.Looking_up,am afraid it´s going to take some time before useful trials,as described by you,do show up.

Have a good weekend, FC!

Thank you,you too.

Waves to FC.

*Waves*.Thanks for the info.I think many other members will find it useful.

[cha kuen]

Western MD's are not sure if it really works. So I called a couple well known TCM guys and they said it's useless. But they said those multi vitamins are good.

I take their word for it. =]

I'd rather sharpen my mind etc with proven things like chi kung and meditation.

[Scythefall]

I used Gingko for about 8 months and never noticed any benefit and actually, during a rather difficult time of my life, it failed to help me with the "scatterbrain" I was developing from everything going on. THere are some good Gingko teas out there though if you just want a refreshing beverage.

[GeneChing]

There are some ancient gingko trees in the front courtyard of Shaolin Temple. For a while, Grandmaster Suxi was cultivating them for tea.

I used to take gingko daily to alleviate my tinnitus. It seemed to work at the time. Can't remember if it helped my memory much. Maybe if I took it again regularly, I would remember. Eventually, I attenuated to my tinnitus, so I stopped taking gingko daily. Now I'll take it in those herbal drinks now and again, but that's about it.

[fa_jing]

I used to take ginko to help me sleep. It goes to show you that it does something, just not necessarily what is advertised, and depending on the causes as was stated may or may not help your problem, whatever that is hehe ;)

[GeneChing]

I've a great believer in placebo methodologies. In fact, if I wasn't such a skeptic, I'd just use placebos. Often, it's a game with me personally, find some new palcebo, exhaust it, then move on. Perhaps that's why I've progressed through so many different therapeutic systems.

I think that gingko may have been more placebo effect for the initial stages of my malady, just because I needed something, anything. But after a while, the daily ritual of dosage became too troublesome for the minimal effects.

[ctoepker]

Another problem with herbal treatments is that they are very random in their dosage. Some supplements have too much, others none at all...

http://www.sciencenews.org/20030607/bob8.asp

Food for thought,
CT

[GeneChing]

With anything organic, it's all about getting the kynd green, just think of salads. Most of us settle for iceberg drowned in ranch dressing, but fresher is better and more nutritious. The same goes for those fad-ish herbal fusion drinks I mentioend earlier. How fresh is that? Nothing like a good fresh dose, and with gingko, it's easy to grow your own tree, or at least it's easy to find them in our area.