Used medicinally for thousands of years, ginkgo biloba has most recently been touted as a big-time brain booster. It may also help brains ravaged by strokes, according to new research.
A daily dose of the herbal remedy may help mitigate the brain damage suffered by stroke patients, according to a new study published online in the medical journal Stroke. Researchers found that ginkgo helps reduce stroke damage in mice by almost 50 percent. The findings are encouraging and warrant further testing to see if the herb can also help people, according to the The New York Times "Well" blog.
“It’s still a large leap from rodent brains to human brains, but these results strongly suggest that further research into the protective effects of ginkgo is warranted,” said lead researcher Sylvain Doré, an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, in a press release. “If further work confirms what we’ve seen, we could theoretically recommend a daily regimen of ginkgo to people at high risk of stroke as a preventive measure against brain damage.
