Evidence Mounting for Ginkgo as a new Treatment for ADHD

For seniors with mild cognitive impairment or the more serious Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia, the herb Ginkgo biloba is more effective than anything on the market, including any pharmaceutical. For children with ADHD, ginkgo may not be quite as much the superstar. But emerging evidence is building a case that ginkgo can offer significant help as part of a program for ADHD. . . .

A previous double-blind study found that ginkgo does help children with ADHD but that it is not as effective as the drug methylphenidate (Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 2010;34:76-80).

So, researchers wodered what would happen if you added ginkgo to methylphenidate. So, in a double-blind study, sixty-six kids with ADHD were given either their methylphenidate plus a placebo or their methylphenidate plus 80-120mg of ginkgo, depending on the child’s weight.

According to the children’s teachers, the addition of ginkgo, though it didn’t help other symptoms, did significantly improve the children’s inattention. According to the ADHD Rating Scale, adding ginkgo to the children’s medication did result in significantly greater improvement in inattention, total score and the clincal response rate. So, more children responded to the treatment, and they responded more, when ginkgo was added.

The researchers concluded that adding ginkgo to the kids’ meds was safe and effective. They said that it resulted in a “significant increase in overall clinical treatment response” (Complement Ther Clin Pract 2015;21:61-7).

Adding to the case for supplementing kids with ADHD with ginkgo is a third study published last year. This was a pilot study that was not placebo-controlled, but it found that a higher dose of 120-240mg of ginkgo led to significant improvement, according to parents’ ratings, on a scale of twenty aspects of ADHD symptoms. There was also significant improvement in specific symptoms, including attention problems, hyperactivity and impulsiveness. This study also found significant improvement in social behaviour and disruption of family life (Kinder Jugendpsychiatr Psychother 2014;42:337-47).

Although the great senior’s herb, Ginkgo biloba, has not yet become widely recognized as a treatment for children’s conditions like ADHD, these three studies taken together begin to suggest a significant place for ginkgo in the regimen for treating ADHD.