Parents giving children 'smart brain' injections
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/ Korea Times
By Ko Dong-hwan
Parents who fear their children’s academic performance will be below par are seeking “brain stimulus” injections to boost their children’s brainpower.
Whether the children want it or not, the parents are giving them shots of gingko leaf extract mixed with various vitamins. One injection costs from 60,000 won ($52) to 120,000 won.
The mother of a boy, 8, preparing for a national mathematics contest, took him to a family medicine physician in Jongno-gu, Seoul, and gave the boy an injection once a day for three days. The mother, from Seoul’s opulent Seocho-gu, Seoul district, believed the shots would improve her boy’s concentration.
“My boy doesn’t like injections,” the mother said, according to Chosun Ilbo. “But after I saw that the shots had some effect, I have been giving him a shot every time he writes a paper for a contest.”
Seven out of 10 clinics in and around Daechi-dong, a hotspot in Seoul crammed with private institutes, offer the shots, according to the report.
Experts questioned the shots, saying there was no medical proof that they were effective, and that they most likely had a placebo effect.
“Most of the ingredients exit the body in the urine and what’s left hardly last for a few hours,” said a family medicine physician at Severance Hospital.