Ginkgo improves concentration and Hanna believed in the healing powers it possessed.

Did you know Ginkgo biloba is one of the oldest tree species on the planet and is one of the most frequently used medicinal preparations in Europe, where herbal medicine and conventional drug therapy exist side by side in most physicians’ practices? Ginkgo has become a popular herb around the world for its benefits to the circulatory system, memory, and overall brain health with one of the largest catalogs of research of any herb in the world. 

A majority of the studies surrounding Ginkgo reveal the benefits to memory and brain function. From mild confusion in the elderly to severe forms of senility (including Alzheimer’s disease), Ginkgo has proven to be a great benefit because it regulates the flow of blood to the brain, head, skin, and limbs and in many cases, increases the flow of blood to the brain. The increase in blood flow means an increase in nutrients and oxygen to the brain which not only boosts performance but also decreases the chance of blood clots and helps to speed recovery from strokes.

Because Ginkgo improves blood flow, it is a heart healthy herb. Irregular heart beats, atherosclerosis, and tissue damage from loss of oxygen during heart attacks have been improved with the use of Ginkgo as well as the antioxidant protection from free radicals it provides. Learn more about antioxidants and free radicals. Other benefits of Ginkgo include:

• Improving hearing loss or ringing in the ears from poor blood flow to the head
• Improved eye conditions like macular degeneration and glaucoma
• Lessened postoperative swelling and intensity of head injuries
• Improved blood flow for PMS, bloating, and impotence
• Easing of allergies
• Improving circulatory complications of diabetes
• Improving immune system function
• Protecting against nerve problems cause by cancer chemotherapy drugs
• Easing of breathing problems like asthma or bronchitis

When Hanna first decided to add an extract into her line of herbal combinations she approached it differently than others had done previously.  Ginkgo biloba extract was producing some great results helping people with memory issues and those with trouble getting blood flow to their extremities.  The standard extract that everyone was using was a product that concentrated the leaf of the Ginkgo tree to two of its active compounds at a very high ratio, Ginkgo Flavone Glycosides at 24% and Terpene Lactones at 6%.  This is a very high concentration. In order to achieve such a powerful level very strong solvents such as acetone or methanol must be applied. Several repetitions of this process may be necessary, isolating the known marker compounds and throwing out the rest.

From Hanna’s perspective, this was wasteful.  Why throw out part of the plant that may have healing benefit  for the sake of producing a drug-like substance that requires a very unnatural approach in it’s production?  Especially since the benefits of the plain leaf, by itself, had been noted for over two thousand years!

After some searching, a manufacturer was found that could produce an extract using the natural solvent water, at a smaller concentration of 10%/2.5% (as opposed to 24/6), while preserving the other as yet undiscovered compounds of this wonderful healing herb. This later became known as a full-profile extract. Hanna further improved on the concept by removing the commonly used, nutritionally empty, flowing agents that these extracts use to keep the material from gumming up the encapsulating machinery; and replaced them with some of the raw material itself. In this case, plain, unadulterated Ginkgo leaves!

The problem of encapsulating a difficult extract was solved and in the process a new way of looking at herbal extracts was born.  She had made a product that the body would accept readily as food with the advanced efficacy of an extract!

We later took this concept that Hanna pioneered with the Ginkgo and applied it to other herbal extracts creating our Complete Concentrates^® line of supplements that we are very proud of.