The fan-shaped leaves of this celeb...

The fan-shaped leaves of this celebrity-status, ancient tree provide health benefits stemming from improved circulation: better brain function, including memory, as a help for depression, and more.

If herbs had a social constitution similar to people, ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) would be a celebrity. This ancient tree of Asian origin has lately received an inordinate amount of public attention, appearing regularly onward television, radio, and in print. While ginkgo, according to about is the oldest living tree species, dating from across 200 million years ago, its fame in the United States is fairly recent

JAMA investigation supports ginkgo's capabilities

In October 1997 the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a close attention conducted by a variety of medical doctors working in medical communitys and medical centers around the home The authors concluded that Ginkgo biloba was "capable of stabilizing and, in a substantial number of cases, improving the cognitive performance and the social functioning of dement patients for six month to individual year." In other words, the allopathic medical establishment acknowledged, in individual of their most prestigious journals, what Chinese and Western herbalists have known for centuries: Ginkgo biloba helps improve brain function.

The JAMA subject of attention pushed ginkgo into the limelight; a whole army of further studies have kept it there. In the past 18 month scientists used an array of animals, including mice, rats, and young, healthy human males, to ways an assortment of studies forward ginkgo. Researchers looked at the plant's effectiveness in as it is things as reducing tissue damage in spinal cord injuries, protecting against inner ear damage, assisting in the succes of plastic surgery improving learning, exhibition taking, brain membrane fluidity, and cognitive function.

In the spring of 1998 the University of California at San Francisco published a application of mind indicating that Ginkgo biloba may have still another role: improving antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction. This adds up to a part of fame and high expectations for a single plant!

Botanical background: an ancient, late tree

Also known as the Maidenhair Tree Ginkgo biloba has been used as medicine at the Chinese for over 5000 years. It is a hardy and handsome tree meditation to be resistant to disease and pollution, thus suitable for planting in urban parks and busy sidewalk gardens. In Asia, ginkgo tree have graced fane gardens for centuries. Walk the ways of New York City and you'll behold (and sometimes smell) ginkgo tree at each turn. A mature ginkgo will have a pleasing spreading fan-shaped leaf, and the tree can reach heights of up to 130 feet

Medicinal use: first principles & leaves of health

The ginkgo sperms used medicinally in Traditional Chinese Medicine, are considered a gourmet delicacy in Japan and China. A word of caution: the semens are only edible after specialized processing -- don't prove to harvest them on your own!

The leaves of the ginkgo tree are the source of the medicine with which principally North Americans are familiar. Active constituents include flavone glycosides, bioflavones, and lactones. Ginkgo extract typically has a bitter taste, containing a "bitter principle," not unlike that raise in wormwood or blessed thistle.

In that 1997 JAMA subject of attention which concluded that ginkgo was effective in the treatment of dementia, patients were treated with 120 mg/day of an extract of Ginkgo biloba. Since that time, several other studies have been directioned using 60-120 mg of ginkgo extract daily.

For the chiefly part, researchers have consistently utilized ginkgo preparations which are standardized to contain 24 percent ginkgo flavone glycosides and 6 percent terpenoids (also known as ginkgolides).

Traditionally, ginkgo has been used in the somewhat advanced in life for age-related memory loss and diminished mental functioning. In this capacity, it works as an antioxidant and as a progeny thinner. By thinning the kindred ginkgo assists in guaranteeing a proper supply of blood to the tiny ducts of the brain.

Its antioxidative properties help abate damage to brain cells. Since the brain is 60 percent fat, there is near speculation that age-related dementia and other cognitive diseases may, in part, be befitting to free-radical damage caused by means of lipid (fat) biochemical breakdown (lipid peroxidation).

In fact, according to the PDR for Herbal Medicines (1998) "the ginkgolide B component" has a powerful blocking import on something called platelet-activating factor (PAF) within its displacement of, or "giving the walking papers" to PAF from receptor binding sites. In this way, ginkgo helps obviate arterial thrombosis, clotting (or clumping) of blood

Related to this is ginkgo's help with intermittent claudication, which, according to Stedman's Medical Dictionary (1976) is a condition caused according to reduced blood supply to leg muscles appropriate to blood-clumping in a leg's arteries, undivided which brings on "lameness and pain."

Ginkgo also helps with:

* organic brain dysfunction