Ginkgo in the Treatment of Cognitive Deficiency

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"The first green growth to appear at the centre of Hiroshima in 1946 was the sprout of a ginkgo tree. Like all other flora and fauna in the city, the ginkgo tree originally there was incinerated when the atomic bomb was dropped August 6, 1945. The new plant showed all the usual traits of its species and grew into a normal, full -size tree.
...Therapeutic uses of the ginkgo seed have been described in China and other parts of eastern Asia for 2000 years. Present-day Chinese medicine uses extracts from ginkgo leaves in wound dressings. The vasoactive properties of ginkgo principles may play a role in this application. A major traditional Chinese use of ginkgo is in the treatment of bronchial asthma, presumably owing to its PAF-inhibiting properties.
...Some 50 original papers have been published on the pharmacological actions of ginkgo extracts... Most of the studies were performed with the extract EgB 761. The 1994 Commission E monograph summarizes the experimentally document pharmacological actions of EGb 761 as follows:

  • increases tolerance to hypoxia, especially in brain tissue;
  • inhibits the development of post-traumatic or toxin-induced brain edema and hastens its resolution;
  • reduces retinal edema and retinal lesions;
  • inhibits the age-related decline of muscarinic choline receptors and a2 improves memory and learning capacity and aids in the compensation of disturbed equilibrium, acting particularly at the level of the microcirculation;
  • improves the rheologic properties of the blood;
  • scavenges toxic oxygen-derived free radicals;
  • inhibits platelet activating factor (PAF) and exerts a neuroprotective effect.

    - pp.38 - 44, Rational Phytotherapy: A Physicians' Guide to Herbal Medicine by Schulz Hansel Tyler (1998)

  • Ginkgo, herbs for the brain, cognition
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