On Tuesday, US researchers revealed that contrary to the popular belief, the commonly used herbal supplement, Ginkgo biloba does not seem to show any signs of slowing cognitive decline in healthy older people, nor does it help those who have mild cognitive impairment.

For the sake of study, as many as 3,069 people age 72 or older were analyzed from 4 American communities. They were tracked for an average of 6 years, and half of them took extracts of the supplement twice daily and the other half were on a placebo.

Compared with those who were on a placebo, people on Ginkgo biloba did not seem to have slowed their cognitive decline.

"The primary finding was no effect of the ginkgo extract over a relatively long period of time in older people in slowing down what we see as the normal changes of thinking function in aging. if one thought that ginkgo might maintain cognition and prevent or delay decline in some thinking associated with aging, it did not do that", said study leader Dr. Steven DeKosky, Dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Ginkgo biloba is one of the highest selling herbal supplements and is long known to help with memory improvement and keeping age-related cognitive decline at bay. But the recent findings have managed to refute the ages old belief.

Details of the study have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.