Ginkgo

We've been taking ginkgo daily in the hope that it will help our memory as we grow older. It's not clear that it's helping me -- names and nouns are getting harder and harder to dredge out of my memory -- but with a sample of size one it's difficult to say anything for sure. Randy Brown, our son on Judy's side, once commented that in Los Angeles, ginko bottles come with the instruction "Take one a half hour before thinking." So you can draw any conclusions you want about the value of ginkgo as a supplement.

And so, apparently, can researchers, based on an Oregon State University study. If you look at a UPI report, a Newsweek article, or a supplement industry newsletter, all reporting on the same study, you get mixed results. The overall results are apparently relatively negative, but with some inconclusive evidence that regular use might be helpful and a general "need more study" feeling. But ... what was I saying? I forget.