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Dementia risk not lessened with ginkgo, but protein levels may determine brain health 2010-01-05 The market for ginkgo biloba supplements is worth $99 million each year, but ginkgo users may be throwing their money down the drain. That's according to the largest-ever study of ginkgo's effects on dementia. The study, which examined more than 3,000 older people, was performed by the University of Virginia School of Medicine and funded by the National Institutes of Health. Two daily 120-milligram doses of ginkgo biloba did nothing to ward off Alzheimer's dementia or other types of dementia, the study found last year. And ginkgo had no effect on cognitive decline, the latest findings reported. "We can't seem to find an effect for ginkgo biloba," said gerontology expert Lon Schneider to USA Today. Another recent study may provide valuable information about dementia risk, however. According to Boston University School of Medicine research, the presence of a weight- and appetite-controlling protein, leptin, was closely tied to dementia. The risk of getting Alzheimer's was 25 percent for people with the lowest levels of leptin "compared to a six percent risk for [those] with the highest levels," noted study author Sudha Seshadri. Higher dementia rates were highlighted by a recent report from Canada's Alzheimer Society, which said that the number of dementia sufferers may double within thirty years.  |
