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

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.

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