If you’re taking herbal dietary supplements such as echinacea, ginkgo, garlic, St. John’s wort and others, or even Vitamin E supplements, and you’ll be undergoing a medical procedure that will require the administration of anesthetics, be sure to let your doctor know what supplements you are taking. A lot of herbal supplements have side effects and drug interactions. Have a look at this flyer from the American Society of Anesthesiologists: What You Should Know About Herbal and Dietary Supplement Use and Anesthesia.
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Ginkgo biloba extracts have already been widely used to counter memory loss and while there have been many studies suggesting that these extracts may prevent or delay the onset of dementia, the current data remains inconclusive. Some speculate that the extraction procedure has a huge impact on the efficacy, and therefore not all Ginkgo extracts are equally effective.
In a recent 3-year study conducted with elderly participants, data indicates that people who reliably took the supplement had a 68 percent lower risk of developing mild memory problems than those who took the placebo. Taking the entire data set, though, the …read more