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STUDY: Ginkgo Biloba, statins fail to help in MS

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  • STUDY: Ginkgo Biloba, statins fail to help in MS

    Disappointing. It's interesting that über popular Ginkgo Biloba had no effect on short term cognition (long term wasn't studied) and that those taking statins may actually increase their relapse rate. I suppose this news may save some of us some money. - Dave

    HONOLULU – Ginkgo biloba and simvastatin were not helpful in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in separate randomized, placebo-controlled trials.

    Treatment with ginkgo at 120 mg twice a day for 12 weeks produced no significant, short-term improvements in cognitive function in a study of 121 patients. The addition of simvastatin (Zocor) to interferon therapy for multiple sclerosis in a separate study did not significantly reduce the annualized relapse rate after 1-3 years, investigators reported at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology.
    Dave Bexfield
    ActiveMSers

  • #2
    Here's an abstract of the full study, which was officially published this month....

    Source: Neurology

    Ginkgo biloba does not improve cognitive function in MS: A randomized placebo-controlled trial

    Lovera JF, Kim E, Heriza E, Fitzpatrick M, Hunziker J, Turner AP, Adams J, Stover T, Sangeorzan A, Sloan A, Howieson D, Wild K, Haselkorn J, Bourdette D; Neurology (Sep 2012)

    OBJECTIVE: To determine whether Ginkgo biloba extract (ginkgo) improves cognitive function in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS).

    METHODS: Persons with MS from the Seattle and Portland VA clinics and adjacent communities who scored 1 SD or more below the mean on one of 4 neuropsychological tests (Stroop Test, California Verbal Learning Test II [CVLT-II], Controlled Oral Word Association Test [COWAT], and Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task [PASAT]) were randomly assigned to receive either one 120-mg tablet of ginkgo (EGb-761; Willmar Schwabe GmbH&Co, Germany) or one placebo tablet twice a day for 12 weeks. As the primary outcome, we compared the performance of the 2 groups on the 4 tests at exit after adjusting for baseline performance.

    RESULTS: Fifty-nine subjects received placebo and 61 received ginkgo; 1 participant receiving placebo and 3 receiving ginkgo were lost to follow-up. Two serious adverse events (AEs) (myocardial infarction and severe depression) believed to be unrelated to the treatment occurred in the ginkgo group; otherwise, there were no significant differences in AEs. The differences (ginkgo - placebo) at exit in the z scores for the cognitive tests were as follows: PASAT -0.2 (95% confidence interval [CI] -0.5 to 0.1); Stroop Test -0.5 (95% CI -0.9 to -0.1); COWAT 0.0 (95% CI -0.2 to 0.3); and CVLT-II 0.0 (95% CI -0.3 to 0.3); none was statistically significant.

    CONCLUSIONS: Treatment with ginkgo 120 mg twice a day did not improve cognitive performance in persons with MS.Classification of evidence:This study provides Class I evidence that treatment with ginkgo 120 mg twice a day for 12 weeks does not improve cognitive performance in people with MS.
    Dave Bexfield
    ActiveMSers

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    • #3
      Dave,
      I think you need to get outside more and stop reading weird stuff.
      Just my humble opinion.
      Jill

      Comment


      • #4
        Ha, thanks Jill. I get so many abstracts e-mailed to me that I would really need to get out more if I read them all in detail and tried to comprehend each one.

        For this particular study, the earlier article link had died, so I figured I'd post the study abstract if people wanted to research it in more detail.
        Dave Bexfield
        ActiveMSers

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