New research showing positvie benefits of Bacopa monnieri on the elderly.

Recently a research article in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary medicine demonstrated improvements in cognitive performance after treatment with Bacopa extract.

The abstract can be found here
J Altern Complement Med. 2008 Jul;14(6):707-13.

Title:
Effects of a standardized Bacopa monnieri extract on cognitive performance, anxiety, and depression in the elderly: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.
Authors:
Calabrese C, Gregory WL, Leo M, Kraemer D, Bone K, Oken B.

Article Summary

The study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with a placebo run-in of 6 weeks and a treatment period of 12 weeks.

Fifty four elderly volunteers with an average age of 73.5 years were split into two groups. One group taking 300mg Bacopa extract per day and one placebo group.

Only Forty eight people completed the 12-week study with 24 in each group.

The two groups were subjected to a variety of cognitive tests including the following:
1:) Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT),
2:) Stroop Task (ability to ignore irrelevant information),
3:)Divided Attention Task (DAT),
4:)Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS).


The group taking the Bacopa extract had improved scores in both the AVLT delayed word recall and the Stroop results compared to the placebo group.

AVLT=Auditory Verbal Learning Test
Stroop test

No adverse reations were observed when compared to the placebo group.