06/23/2013 // Concord, CA, USA // LifeCare123 // Greg Vigna, MD, JD // (press release)

As a practicing physician I recognize that there are many reasons why the populous is turning its back to modern medicine. Not because doctors have failed, but because the FDA has failed in its duty to protect the human population from unsafe drugs and devices that have been produced by profit driven companies.

An unfortunate result of this failure by the FDA is that it has produced a subculture of citizens who recognize they need traditional medicine but also they desire alternative medication to achieve their goal of optimum health. I have a message to this subculture, “Just because it is natural, and does not mean it is safe”. Please tell your treating physician of the medicines that you are administrating and the doses ingested.

From my experience as a physician specializing in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation there is no injury as catastrophic as a traumatic brain injury. Every aspect of an injured patient is affected including cognitive function and physical function. These families are absolutely desperate. They will search for whatever remedy and whatever treatment is available. That will lead them to ginkgo biloba, a natural herbal extract that has been shown to improve neuropsychological function, attention, memory, and information processing.

It is not uncommon for these desperate families of traumatic brain injured patients to administer ginkgo biloba to their family member during the patient’s acute hospitalization following a brain injury without disclosing the information to the hospital. I have a message, “Just because it is natural does not mean it is safe!” Especially in traumatic brain injured patients who have epidural and subdural hematomas, intracranial bleeds, or have or may need shunts to manage hydrocephalus.

Ginkgo biloba is associated with bleeding events and is associated with increased bleeding times which correlates with the time that bleeding will stop by the clotting mechanisms. This increased bleeding time is related to platelet aggregation which is the same mechanism aspirin prevents clotting. There have been serious adverse events because of bleeding associated with ginkgo biloba.

In my patients with acute traumatic brain injured population or in patients with a history of intracranial bleeds I only support the use of ginkgo biloba in patients that I can comfortably prescribe aspirin. Just because ginkgo biloba is natural does not mean that it should not be dealt with as a drug.

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