Ginkgo Dosage: What Studies Used and What Homes Should

With ginkgo, more isn't more. Here is the working range practitioners and studies tend to agree on, and the signs you have gone past it.

The working range

Steep 1 to 2 grams of dried leaf for 10 minutes, or use a standardized extract. Nuts must be cooked and eaten sparingly.

Stay at food level: a few cups of tea, a spoon of powder, the amounts a cook would use. Concentrated extracts compress several servings into one capsule, so follow the label rather than free-pouring.

What the studies used

A few cautions from the research literature: ginkgo may be unsafe for use during pregnancy. It might cause early labor or extra bleeding during delivery if used near that time.

Signs you have overdone it

Ginkgo is neutral in nature. Push a warming herb hard and you feel flushed, restless, dry-mouthed; push a cooling herb and digestion turns sluggish. Either way, the fix is the same: stop, let things settle, restart at half the amount.

Unlike drugs, dietary supplements are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before they are sold to the public.

Herbs work best as part of a pattern, not as a solo act. If your symptoms keep coming back, that is the moment to get a proper TCM diagnosis rather than to keep self-prescribing.