Brain Supplements Are a Scam, Warns Harvard Medical School (Have Some Pharma-Slop Instead!)

Harvard Medical School is looking out for us.

Because they love us.

Because they care.

Because mutual trust between institutions and the citizens they dutifully serve is indispensable in this, Our Sacred Democracy™.

Related: The Corporate Media's Sick Jihad Against Vitamin D

Via Harvard Health Publishing (emphasis added):

“The main issue with all over-the-counter supplements is lack of regulation. The FDA doesn't oversee product testing or ingredient accuracy — they just look out for supplements that make health claims related to the treatment of specific diseases.

In terms of brain health, this means a supplement manufacturer can claim a product helps with mental alertness or memory loss — but not that it protects against or improves dementia or Alzheimer's disease. This way manufacturers don't have to back up any claim that their product is effective.”

To prove the thesis that supplements are wastes of time and money and don’t produce any benefits and so you should just Trust the Experts™ and take whatever drugs Harvard is peddling at any given time (more on that later), they shot themselves in the foot and picked arguably one of the most thoroughly vetted supplements out there for brain health: ginkgo biloba.

Continuing:

“The fan-shaped leaves of the ginkgo tree are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat all kinds of ailments. In the United States, the extract from the leaves is sold as a supplement commonly called ginkgo biloba. One of its main selling points is as a memory enhancer. However, as with other brain health supplements, the science doesn't support the claims.

One of the largest clinical trials that explored the possible link was the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study. Researchers recruited more than 3,000 older adults, average age 79, 54% of whom were men, with normal cognitive function or mild cognitive impairment. Everyone was given either 120 milligrams of ginkgo or a placebo twice a day for almost six years. (This amount was chosen based on previous research.) The results found that ginkgo biloba did not lower the overall rate of developing dementia.”

So they found a single study (which is not annotated or linked to) to prove that “ginkgo biloba did not lower the overall rate of developing dementia” (which says nothing of what it might do to help patients who have dementia already) and washed their hands of it.

What the vast cornucopia of actual research says on ginkgo biloba vs. dementia

Mind you, these are just a handful of the many, many studies on ginkgo biloba available for free to anyone who wants to look on the web.

Via American Journal of Translational Research (emphasis added):

“Previous studies have indicated that the generation of newborn hippocampal neurons is impaired in the early phase of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A potential therapeutic strategy being pursued for the treatment of AD is increasing the number of newborn neurons in the adult hippocampus. Recent studies have demonstrated that ginkgo biloba extract (EGb 761) plays a neuroprotective role by preventing memory loss in many neurodegenerative diseases. However, the extent of EGb 761’s protective role in the AD process is unclear. In this study, different doses of EGb 761 (0, 10, 20, and 30 mg/kg; intraperitoneal injections once every day for four months) were tested on 5×FAD mice. After consecutive 4-month injections, mice were tested in learning memory tasks, Aβ, and neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus (DG) of hippocampus and morphological characteristics of neurons in DG of hippocampus. Results indicated that EGb 761 (20 and 30 mg/kg) ameliorated memory deficits. Further analysis indicated that EGb 761 can reduce the number of Aβ positive signals in 5×FAD mice, increase the number of newborn neurons, and increase dendritic branching and density of dendritic spines in 5×FAD mice compared to nontreated 5×FAD mice. It was concluded that EGb 761 plays a protective role in the memory deficit of 5×FAD mice.”

Via Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (emphasis added):

“EGb761 at 240 mg/day is able to stabilize or slow decline in cognition, function, behavior, and global change at 22-26 weeks in cognitive impairment and dementia, especially for patients with neuropsychiatric symptoms.”

Via Archives of Neurology:

“Based on a quantitative analysis of the literature there is a small but significant effect of 3- to 6-month treatment with 120 to 240 mg of G. biloba extract on objective measures of cognitive function in AD. The drug has not had significant adverse effects in formal clinical trials but there are 2 case reports of bleeding complications.”

Curiously, Harvard doesn’t seem to harbor the same degree of skepticism when it comes to trendy Pfizer products.

On the contrary, according to Harvard, “side effects after a COVID shot indicate it's working.”

Via Harvard Health Publishing, September 2024 (!) (emphasis added):

“One reason people avoid getting a COVID booster is concern about side effects like fatigue, achiness, muscle and joint pain, chills, headache, and fever. But a new study found that these symptoms indicate a robust immune response to the vaccine that increases antibody levels and offers extra protection against the virus.

Researchers examined the antibody responses and side effects from 363 people who had the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines. One month after the second dose, they found that those who cited at least one side effect, such as chills, fatigue, headache, or generally feeling unwell, had antibody levels 1.4 to 1.6 times higher than those who reported no symptoms. The researchers found that these levels were still elevated six months later.”

Related: Dark Money PAC Rallies 17K Doctors to Denounce RFK Jr. HHS Nomination

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical interventions for dementia that Harvard gives the hard sell for fail at a spectacular rate of 99.6% — because they don’t address the root cause of the illness.

Ginkgo biloba might not be a miracle cure for dementia — but it’s remarkably superior to the bullshit the pharmaceutical industry pumps out year after year.

Via Scientific American (emphasis added):

“Dementia has become a graveyard for a large number of promising drugs. A recent study looked at how 244 compounds in 413 clinical trials fared for Alzheimer's disease between 2002 and 2012. The researchers findings paint a gloomy picture. Of those 244 compounds, only one was approved. The researchers report that this gives Alzheimer's disease drug candidates one of the highest failures rates of any disease area – 99.6%, compared with 81% for cancer.”

After all, as Goldman Sachs was brazen enough to point out in one of its reports, curing patients, which presents a challenge to “sustained cash flow,” isn’t a sustainable business model.

And neither are naturally-occurring compounds like ginkgo biloba that can’t be patented (yet).

Via CNBC (emphasis added):

“Goldman Sachs analysts attempted to address a touchy subject for biotech companies, especially those involved in the pioneering “gene therapy” treatment: cures could be bad for business in the long run.

“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution.”

“The potential to deliver ‘one shot cures’ is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies,” analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. “While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.””

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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