I saw an interesting snippet on the evening news last night about Ginkgo Biloba being shown not to improve health.  Besides it not working, one thing was very interesting to me.  Currently almost all of the herbal and alternative medication remedies have far too little research that would come close to meeting FDA requirements for a new prescription drug to make claims of efficacy, the US is starting to fund major studies on alternative medications.  I think this is great news.  Right now I really have to tell patients that I just don’t know if the (fill in the blank here really) that they are taking or are considering taking really helps.  On the one hand placebo is powerful medication, and I will rarely tell a patient that something that they believe helps really does not help.  On the other hand I see patients with very limited financial situations spending  real money on supplements and remedies that have little or no proof of benefit.   I hope to see more well done studies on this topic.  Read Reuter’s article about this study on FoxNews.com.

For ideas on ways to possibly improve memory and brain function, especially in old age, see this article.     Ginkgo doesn’t work: Are there better ways to save your brain? Unfortunately most of them require more effort than swallowing a couple pills.   All drugs have potential side effects.   What we all probably need to do is manage our diet and exercise to improve our lipid type and try to prevent diabetes.