Ginkgo biloba

Introduction

Herbal supplements are plants or plant parts (e.g., leaves, flowers, seeds, bark, etc.) valued for their medicinal properties, flavor, and scent. These supplements may contain a single herb or mixtures of herbs. Commonly used herbal supplements include echinacea, ginseng, gingko biloba, garlic, and ginger, flaxseeds, and St. John's wort. Other products, such as protein powder, fish oils, amino acids mixes, fiber supplements, and enzyme preparations, among others, are also used as supplements to maintain or boost health. Ginkgo biloba, ginkgo, or forty shields tree is a tree is unique in the world, with no living relatives (Royer, 84).

History

Ginkgo has numerous medical applications (capillary circulation, vasodilator, blood circulation, etc). Rich in flavonoids, the extract of ginkgo leaves is a powerful antioxidant. Its pharmaceutical use has been proposed vasodilator capacity which would address issues of memory, the senility, poor skin. It is also used in Alzheimer's disease despite the lack of proven efficacy. Similarly, there are no demonstrated effects on cognitive impairment in the elderly. It would allow people with Raynaud's phenomenon endure the cold. It also contains terpenes, isolated in 1932 by Furakawa and called ginkgolide. Their structure is identified in the year 1960. Elias James Corey, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, a synthesis of one of them, ginkgolide B.

Ginkgo biloba is naturalized in south-eastern China in the Monts Tianmushan. This is a cultivated species; the wild version has almost completely disappeared. From there, he arrived in Japan and Korea around the 12th century. Engelbert Kaempfer, a physician and botanist German stayed in Japan from 1690 to 1692 on a mission for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first European to have made a description of this tree in his memory Amoenitatum exoticarum.

He brought the young shoots of Ginkgo in Holland and it is in the botanical gardens of Utrecht that the first European Ginkgo was planted in 1730. The first leg of Ginkgo biloba in France was brought by Augustus Broussonnet (1761-1807) who had received a present from Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820). He gave for the first time the eggs 12 April 1812. In 1795, a cutting taken from the ginkgo is planted in Montpellier at the Paris Jardin des Plantes. Both trees are still alive today (Mustoe, 1078).

Practical Uses and Side Effects of the Herb

Ginkgo leaves are anti-allergenic, anti-asthmatic, antioxidant, antivertigo, circulatory, ophthalmic and a brain tonic. Ginkgo fruits, on the other hand, are anticarcinogenic, astringent, bactericidal, fungicide, ...