Gingko Biloba and Short Term Memory Loss
Introduction
I had been taking Centrum Silver Vitamins for quite a while but noticed the the One-a-Day Vitamins Men’s 50+ Advantage vitamins were on sale so I decided to give them a try. One of the ingredients of these One-a-Day’s that the Centrum’s did not have was “Ginkgo Biloba For Memory Support”. To test whether or not this ingredient Ginko Biloba truly helped with short term memory loss, I decided to do my own test.
The Short Term Memory Test
Before starting on my One-a-Day Vitamins containing Ginko Biloba, I did a series of memory tests where I studied lists of random 2 digit sequences ranging in value from 11 to 99 for 1 minute and then took the lists away and tried to remember as many of the numbers as possible in any order. The lists were generated using the random sequence generation tool at random.org. I did this for 5 different lists before starting on the Gingko Biloba, and then repeated the test three weeks later with 4 new lists and a repeat of one of my first lists. In the three week period, I did not miss a single day without my Ginkgo Biloba.
Results of Short Term Memory Test
There was no difference in the before and after. None! In 5 tests conducted before and after, I remembered an average of 5.8 numbers per list on both! In fact, for the second set of trials, on the list repeated from the first trial I remembered the exact same number of sequences.
Typical List of 2-Digit Numbers
With respect to the “placebo effect”, I was actually hoping there would be improvement since I would very much like to be able to help combat memory loss. In spite of my hopes for some improvement, none was to be found.
Conclusions and Recommendations
My conclusion is that Ginkgo Biloba was not helpful in enhancing my short term memory, at least not in a 3-week time period of use. I will repeat these tests after a 3-month period of time to see if longer use of Gingko Biloba has any effect on short term memory loss.
It would be interesting to test long-term memory, however devising such a test might be a bit more challenging. The act of recollecting events that occurred long ago would affect the results.
Another test that might be interesting would be to see how memory of sequences or names a day after studying them is affected by the use of Ginkgo Biloba. This would duplicate the experience of forgetting a phone number or name the day after learning it. Such a “mid-range” memory test would be fairly simple to devise.
Other Memory Tests Done
Comprehensive Ginko Biloba memory tests done on 85+ year old test subjects, documented at Science Daily, show mixed results. There was a slight improvement in memory, but not statistically significant. Also, Ginkgo Biloba seemed to slightly increase the chance of a mini-stroke. You can read about the Ginkgo Biloba Memory Loss Tests here.