Ginkgo Biloba: A Smart Drug?

I figure there are three kinds of herbs: those that are helpful, those that are hype and those that are hyped a lot but happen to be helpful as well. Ginkgo biloba, in my opinion, falls into the third category although I'm not sure that what it's hyped for is exactly what it's helpful for.

The herb we know as Ginkgo biloba is derived from the leaves of the maidenhair tree which grows in warmer parts of the US and in China. The Chinese have used it for five millennia for the treatment of respiratory diseases and memory impairment. These days it's marketed as a "smart drug", one that will improve your cognitive abilities, including memory.

My first questions are, "how can it do that?" and "shouldn't we all be taking it?". The advertising is fairly vague as to how it is supposed to work so, naturally, I had to look elsewhere for the answers. I think that once you understand how the herb works, it's a lot easier to decide when to use it and for what purposes.

Most available research on Ginkgo biloba indicates that it is helpful only in those conditions in which impaired circulation is a factor. Substances in Ginkgo biloba inhibit Platelet Activating Factor (PAF) in the blood and therefore make blood less sticky. Slippery blood flows better through arteries that might be partially clogged with cholesterol deposits. There also seems to be a regulatory effect on the muscle tone of blood vessels by the herb so that the blood has more room in which to flow. It makes sense that if something gets more circulation, it will work better.

In claudication (a condition involving poor circulation to the legs), Ginkgo biloba was found to significantly improve the pain-free walking distance in those sufferers who took it. Similarly, memory loss due poor blood flow to the brain might improve through the use of Ginkgo. In fact, there are clinical studies on dementia patients which showed modest improvement in memory in those who took Ginkgo. The problem is, not all dementia is related to poor circulation.

So, if my brain is slow but the circulation to my brain is fine, will Ginkgo help me? Only if you believe that football players who wear those silly breathing strips on their noses really perform better than those who don't.

Seriously, though, I think Ginkgo biloba has a valid place in the treatment of circulatory disorders. Patients with claudication, impotence, memory loss or other manifestations of microvascular (small vessel) disease stand a good chance of seeing improvement with Ginkgo at a far more reasonable price than the pharmaceutical drugs we have available today.