The Secret to Eternal Youth is closer than you think!!

I was waiting for my mother while she had her appointment and noticed out the window of the truck this most amazing tree turned nearly completely yellow with the autumn months.  And to my joy I found it was a fruiting Ginkgo Tree – hopefully my cell phone photo shows well!

Ginkgo trees have been around since the time of the dinosaurs they are the only species in their family, and some say this ability to have survived for many years is part of how they help us.  Ginkgo is a fantastic antioxidant and it has been shown to be helpful with all of the following:

* Impaired peripheral and cerebral circulation, atherosclerosis, peripheral arterial occlusive disease, Raynaud’s disease. 

• To promote healing, particularly in peripheral tissues such as those in the arms and legs. 

• May improve concentration, cognitive function and memory. 

• To assist healthy ageing and as a tonic for the elderly. 

• Tinnitus, dizziness, sudden hearing loss. 

• Altitude sickness, hypoxia. 

• Conditions requiring mild anti-PAF activity e.g. adjunctive treatment for asthma, liver fibrosis. 

• Multiple sclerosis, diabetes, stress. 

• Disorders due to reduced retinal blood flow, normal tension glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration. 

• May assist schizophrenia and cancer as adjunctive treatment. 

• Congestive dysmenorrhoea, oedematous conditions, migraine, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, vitiligo.

So get to our TEA page, you can get ginkgo either as Single Herb Tea, Memory Tea Blend, or Stress Tea Blend (for those of you viewing the blog away from our store website go to the following link):

The following study I’ve included for the more scientifically starved:

The GuidAge study is a large European clinical trial commenced in 2002 that was designed to assess the 

effects of a 50:1 standardised Ginkgo extract at 240 mg/day for 5 years on the prevention of 

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in people aged 70 or more and complaining of memory problems. It is the longest and largest European study for AD ever conducted, and used a randomised, double blind, placebo-controlled design.1.  A total of 4066 patients were screened for participation, of whom 2854 were entered into the study. 2. Their mean age was 76.8 years and two-thirds were women. The average MMSE (Mini-mental State Examination) score on entry was 27.8 (out of a maximum of 30), indicating good cognitive function. 

The headline results of the GuidAge study have just been released (full publication of the data is pending).3. The primary trial outcome was a significant delay in conversion to clinical AD in all trial participants. This was not seen: during the study 134 patients developed AD, 4.3% in the Ginkgo group versus 5.2% in the placebo group (p = 0.31). However, this analysis was made using an intention-to-treat guideline that included patients who did not complete the trial. In any preventative trial it is reasonable to assume that patients who take the active treatment the longest time should be the ones to exhibit any benefit. Hence a further analysis was completed for patients treated for at least 4 years. In this instance a clinically and statistically significant difference was observed: 15 out of 947 patients (1.6%) developed AD in the Ginkgo group, versus 29 out of 966 (3.0%) in the placebo group (p = 0.03). Interestingly the protective effect in this subset was most marked in men: AD incidence was 2.9% for the Ginkgo group versus 7.0% for placebo (p = 0.007). 

Comment: 

This is probably the first ever clinical study where an intervention (natural or otherwise) has demonstrated a protective effect against AD onset. As such it is a landmark finding that will hopefully encourage more research in this area for Ginkgo and other natural agents. 

The results are in sharp contrast to the GEM study conducted in the US that found no protective benefit for Ginkgo.4. A paper highlighting the differences in design and execution between the two studies has been published.5. Long-term preventative studies in elderly people are difficult to conduct, with problems created by poor compliance, death and disability to name a few. GEM participants were slightly older and the trial design excluded patients taking anticoagulants, whereas GuidAge did not. However, a crucial difference between the two trials was the compliance rate. This was only around 60% for the GEM study, whereas 93% of the participants in the GuidAge took their medication regularly. 3.