Ginkgo Protects Brain During and After Stroke

Sadly a whopping 700,000 Americans have a stroke each year.

Of those, 87 percent have an ischemic stroke, caused by a blocked artery in the brain and also notorious for causing brain damage. Some damage occurs simply from the lack of blood getting to brain cells; however, an increase in the presence of free radicals at the stroke site - once the clot is cleared and the blood supply returns - is also a major cause of brain cell damage.

The only current treatment for ischemic stroke is to clear the clot, offering no real protection against the cell damage that occurs when blood flow is restored.

Enter Ginkgo Biloba: Antioxidant-extraordinaire and recently proven brain cell and neuron protector. Yep, ginkgo not only helped repair cells post-stroke but offered protection during the stroke, too.

Ginkgo isn’t new to the brain-support scene, with a long-standing reputation as a cognition- and memory-booster. But now researchers at Johns Hopkins University have reason to believe ginkgo may play an important role in brain cell protection and repair for stroke victims as well.

Researchers have shown that daily doses of a standardized ginkgo extract can prevent or reduce stroke-related brain damage. The scientists, in a report published in Stroke, say their work lends support to other evidence that ginkgo biloba can help neutralize free radicals known to cause cell death, and thus brain damage.

In the study, researchers gave ginkgo biloba EGb 761 - a lab-quality form of the extract - to normal mice and mice lacking a gene that produces the enzyme heme oxygenase-1(HO-1) -- an intrinsic antioxidant and anti-inflammatory enzyme.

Treated mice were given 100mg per kilogram of ginkgo extract for seven consecutive days prior to induced stokes.

Post-stroke, the mice were tested for brain function and brain damage. Results showed that normal mice that were pretreated had 50.9 percent less neurological dysfunction and 48.2 percent smaller areas of brain damage than untreated mice.

These positive effects did not exist in the mice lacking enzyme HO-1 suggesting that ginkgo increases HO-1 levels, and the antioxidant properties of HO-1 eliminate free radicals at the surrounding regions of the stroke site. Go ginkgo!

Assessing & Lowering Your Stroke Risk

Try this quick stroke risk assessment and learn if you're at risk to suffer a stroke.

Then you might consider a few other supplements in addition to the mighty ginkgo to minimize your risk factors, and support you and your brain in a long, healthy life.

Blood Pressure: Magnesium, Fish Oil & B-Trio all support healthy blood pressure levels.

Blood Sugar: Cinnamon & Alpha Lipoic Acid help support healthy blood sugar levels and metabolism.

Heart Health: Heart Plus, Magnesium, Co-Q10 & L-Carnitine contribute to cardiovascular health.

Cholesterol: Beta Sitosterol & Heart Plus help support healthy cholesterol levels.

Despite the common stigma that chubby folks love their goodies more than most, new research suggests the contrary.

Turns out it may actually be a lack of satisfaction that’s leading to compensatory overeating. It all has to do with taste buds and dopamine, and it’s mighty interesting. Here’s the scoop from your favorite kat.

Most humans are suckers for chocolate – everybody knows this, including researchers at Oregon Research Institute and the University of Oregon, who recently used chocolate milkshakes to study the brain’s pleasure response in relation to food.

Dr. Eric Stice looked at how the brains of 77 young women responded to chocolate milkshakes. Some women were lean, some obese, and some had a gene variant that makes them less sensitive to dopamine, a chemical central to the pleasure response.

Interestingly, a whopping 30 percent of people are thought to have this gene variant, which means nearly 1 in 3 people have 40 percent fewer dopamine receptors in the brain -- so sad. But it’s not just those with the gene variant that suffer low satisfaction.

The role of dopamine in appetite has long puzzled researchers. Dopamine suppresses appetite — think of the appetite-killing effects of amphetamine diet pills, which stimulate dopamine release. However, dopamine can also stimulate overeating -– think of the “carb cravings” many cite as a side-effect to anti-depressants.

Stice’s research suggests how dopamine can play both roles. It increases craving, or the anticipation of eating something good, but blunts the enjoyment of eating it.

Stice sees direct parallels with other addictions, such as smoking and illicit drugs. He thinks many obese people overeat to compensate for the mismatch they experience between their strong cravings and the reduced enjoyment they get.

That yummy, dopamine-sensitive reward zone is the same zone preyed upon my addictive drugs; and as with drugs, tolerance happens and it takes “more” to get the same “high.”

In a 2007 study, Ivan de Araujo and colleagues at Duke University and the Universidade do Porto in Portugal demonstrated that lab mice lacking the ability to taste sweet foods still preferred sugary water to regular water.

Yep, you read right. Even though the mice couldn’t taste the sugar, their brain circuitry could still “sniff it out” so to speak.

And get this: The mice didn’t go for the low-cal alternative when they were offered Splenda. Low-cal sweeteners did not result in a similar dopamine boost along the reward pathways of the brain.

This may explain why diet foods don’t do it for most folks. Taste isn’t the most important factor – brain satisfaction is.

Regardless of if you possess the gene variant, the best way to avoid this vicious cycle, Stice thinks, is to develop healthy eating habits — before pleasure responses get blunted by overeating.

Guido Housemouser
Chief Kat and Community Manager
Our Health Co-op, Incorporated

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Ginkgo Protects Brain During and After Stroke

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