Ginkgo Biloba Study Flawed: The average age of those in the study was 79 years
Sun, 02/07/2010 - 01:51 — frank
A new study released on December 29, 2009 by the Journal of the American Medical Association is actually a new study of previously published data. This study was to find out if Ginkgo biloba slows the rate of cognitive decline in aging [1].
This JAMA study was a double-blind, placebo controlled study of 3069 people with ages between 72 and 96 years old conducted between 2000 and 2008 and a follow-up of 6 years. This study used a twice-daily dose of 120 mg (milligrams) of Ginkgo biloba. The study looked at and scored memory, attention, language, executive functions and visual-spatial construction.
The results found that there were no differences in the scores in any of these areas tested. Their conclusion was that when compared with a placebo, Ginkgo biloba did not result in less cognitive decline in older adults with normal or with mild cognitive impairment.
Arguments Against this Study
As soon as this study was published, the arguments were out stating that this study was flawed. The US government funded this study and Schwabe Pharmaceuticals supplied the Ginkgo biloba and placebo pills. Schwabe is disputing the findings of this study [2]. One important point is, as many as 40% of the participants didn’t take the pills at the end of the study, they had dropped out prior to the completion of the study. This inconsistency affected the reliability of the test. At the end of the study, it was found that the placebo group had a rather unexpected low decline in cognitive functions, which made the comparison to the Ginkgo biloba group worse. Prof. Michael Habs, Director of Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe had this to say about the recent study, “The current paper, describing secondary analyses of data from a previously published study, is methodologically so weak that it is of limited relevance”.
The American Botanical Council (ABC), a nonprofit research and education organization has said these findings are very limited. ABC said that the study is flawed for several reasons. The 40% that quit the study early never had final testing done before leaving the test. The average age of those in the study was 79 years old at the beginning of the study, and most people start taking Ginkgo biloba long before that age to ward of dementia and memory problems.
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