Bacopa Monnieri Simply Explained

1. What It Is About

Bacopa monnieri is also called Brahmi. It is a succulent plant, which means it stores water in its leaves. It belongs to the plantain family and grows in moist areas of South Asia. In Ayurvedic medicine, an ancient Indian healing tradition, it has been used for centuries. There it is regarded as a Rasayana, a rejuvenating agent. Usually an extract is investigated, that is, a concentrated preparation from the plant. Its constituents are called bacosides. The amount present in an extract is measured in different ways: sometimes bacoside A serves as the benchmark, sometimes the total quantity of all bacosides. This makes it difficult to compare the studies directly. The body absorbs bacosides only poorly because they dissolve readily in water. In cell and animal studies they were shown to reach the brain only to a limited extent. Whether this matters in humans remains an open question.

2. What Studies Show

The most important study comes from Stough and colleagues (2008) 1. It included 54 healthy people aged 65 and over, average age 73.5 years. For twelve weeks one half took a standardised extract, the other a placebo, that is, a dummy preparation without active ingredient. No one knew who received what. At the end the participants taking the extract remembered words better and could recall them more accurately later. No difference appeared in mood, anxiety or tasks involving planning or attention. A second study by Raghav and colleagues (2006) 2 examined 40 people with age-related memory decline but without dementia. Here too the intake lasted twelve weeks, followed by four weeks of placebo. The participants performed better on tasks of mental control, logical memory and paired-associate learning. The groups were small, with 20 people on each side. A review by Neale and colleagues (2013) 3 compared the results of several such agents. For Bacopa monnieri the clearest association appeared with delayed word recall, that is, retrieving learned material after a pause. Nothing was observed immediately after a single dose. A study from the Ayurvedic field 4 tested a mixture called Brahmi Ghrita, which contains Bacopa monnieri, together with yoga. Twenty-three participants took the preparation with milk. Improvements were observed in memory tests, and the combination of preparation and yoga performed better than yoga alone. There was no placebo group, and because Bacopa was part of a mixture it is not possible to say what share the plant itself contributed.

3. What Remains Unclear

The extracts investigated differ in composition: sometimes the content of a single substance is used as the benchmark, sometimes the sum of all bacosides. This makes it hard to compare the study results. Mainly older people were studied. Whether younger adults or people with other conditions respond similarly is an open question. Intake usually lasted twelve weeks; studies lasting a year or longer are still outstanding, as are replications by independent research groups. Short observation periods say little about tolerability with prolonged use. How Bacopa monnieri interacts with medicines has so far been examined only in animal studies. Indications of processes involving inflammation, oxidative stress or tumour cells come from cell and animal studies. Whether they play a role in humans remains to be clarified.

4. What This Means in Everyday Life

The most robust findings so far concern the remembering and recall of words in older people. This is therefore not about a general boost to all cognitive functions: planning, attention and mood remained unchanged in the controlled studies. Readers of such studies should pay attention to two points. First: was there a placebo group? Second: was Bacopa monnieri tested alone or only as part of a mixture? Both determine how much a result says about the plant itself. Another point is the composition of the extracts. Two preparations with the same name can contain different amounts of the constituents. Comparisons between studies should therefore be read with caution. For verbal memory in older people there are indications; for most other uses there are so far only hypotheses. What is missing are replications in larger groups, over longer periods and with uniformly composed extracts.

All details with study numbers and sources: detailed page on Bacopa monnieri (Brahmi). For children: Bacopa monnieri (Brahmi) for children.