Word: ginkgo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...local Wal-Mart. Fear the onset of cold and flu season? You could get a flu shot. Or, like 7.3 million Americans, you could swallow a capsule made from echinacea, a purple-petaled daisy native to the Midwest. Worried that your memory is fading? Then write down this name: ginkgo biloba. It's made from the fan-shaped leaf of a tree found from China to South Carolina, and 10.8 million Americans regularly remind themselves to take...
...Recent scientific research--and fresh attention to practical evidence that sometimes stretches back millenniums--is beginning to give guidance. In Germany, where the government has supervised studies of 279 herbs approved for sale in the country's strictly regulated pharmacies, remedies that enjoy the greatest popularity (including ginkgo, kava and St. John's wort) are generally those that have been the most thoroughly investigated...
...tells which herbs have proved safe and beneficial but warns against side effects and other risks. It advises pregnant and nursing women not to take kava, for example, and notes that some people may become sensitive to sunlight when using St. John's wort. It approves standardized doses of ginkgo extract but rejects nonstandard preparations made from whole leaves as untested and potentially hazardous. At the same time, it turns thumbs down on folk remedies like nutmeg for upset stomachs, noting scant evidence that it works and warning that large doses can cause hallucinations...
Such rival brands are emphasizing their quality to health seekers like Shirley Palmer, 66, a Los Angeles writer who pops ginkgo and ginseng and a handful of vitamins on the say-so of friends and news reports. "I have no evidence that these things really work," Palmer says. "I take them on faith." But they keep her away from the doctor, she says, and that's good because "I don't have time to sit around waiting in doctors' offices." Like Palmer, millions of Americans are using ancient remedies to broaden the range of modern health-care choices. And these...
...from companies that research their products. For example, most studies of ginkgo biloba, which appears to delay the progression of early Alzheimer's disease in some patients, have been conducted on an extract produced by Schwabe of Germany and distributed in the U.S. by Nature's Way (Ginkgold) and Warner-Lambert (the Quanterra line). The best-studied version of St. John's wort, which seems to work for mild to moderate depression, is Kira, produced by Lichtwer...