The widely used herbal supplement, Ginkgo biloba, does not appear to prevent the Alzheimer disease in healthy elderly people or those with mild cognitive impairment, U.S. researchers mentioned a couple of days ago. The research they conducted involved 3,069 people age 75 or older at five different U.S. locations. The subjects were tracked for six years on average, half taking twice-daily doses of 120 milligrams of extract from the leaves of ginkgo biloba and the rest taking a placebo. The study showed that the ones taking the ginkgo were no more or less likely to develop Alzheimer’s or any type of dementia. This was written in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Even if previous indications could suggest that Ginkgo biloba has antioxidant and other properties that it might preserve memory, the study showed it does not bring such benefits. Researchers concluded that ginkgo is neither toxic, nor expensive, so people who want to continue taking it aren’t going to hurt themselves other than spending money for nothing. Ginkgo biloba is one of the top-selling herbal supplements, used by people mainly with the aim of improving memory and cognition. Eighteen percent in the ginkgo group and sixteen percent in the placebo group were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or other dementia during the study. Unfortunately, there is no medication currently approved that could stop or prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease, but some scientists say that ginkgo biloba may have show some benefits if it’s used for many years.

There are many treatments that were thought to prevent Alzheimer or stop it, but each of them has proven to be a failure, such as statins, estrogen, anti-inflammatory drugs, vitamin E and drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors. The study practically shows that Alzheimer’s is incurable. The disease slowly progresses from mild memory loss to severe brain damage and death and it’s expected to become even more common as countries all over the world face aging population.