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Ingredient & advertising guide

This page has two jobs. First, it explains every one of the five herbs printed on the label of the bottle we sell, what each one is, and what the research does and does not say about it, including the one trial that matters most. Second, and this is the part most advertising pages leave out, it lists the headlines we run and the headline families common in this category, tells you which ones are exaggerated, and separates the small number of things that are genuinely supported by evidence from the many that are not.

1. Our headlines, and what is actually true

These are the headlines we run for this page, together with the headline families that advertisers in this category use for bottles like this one, which you may have seen elsewhere and which we do not run. The right-hand column is our own plain assessment. Each family is marked Exaggerated, Partly true, Withdrawn, Our headline was wrong or Broadly supported. If you arrived from a headline that is not listed here, write to the address at the foot of this page and we will add it with its verdict.

The headline as you saw it	What is actually behind it
"A Full Year to Send It Back, and Twelve Weeks That Found Nothing"	Broadly supported This is the headline our article is built on and both halves of it can be checked without taking our word for anything. The seller's own terms give a full year to return the product for a refund of the price, less shipping, after trying it for at least thirty days. The twelve weeks are the largest trial ever run of the herb the seller singles out for hearing: 1,121 adults aged 18 to 70 who heard a stable ringing took 50 milligrams of a standardized ginkgo extract three times a day, or a dummy, and at the end 34 of 360 on the herb and 35 of 360 on the dummy said the sound troubled them less. [1] The headline states two facts and the tension between them. It is not a claim that the bottle works, and the article prints the same trial result in its own words.
"The one herb ear specialists point to""The herb behind clear hearing after 60"	Exaggerated A common construction in this category, and we do not run it. No ear specialist was consulted for any of our advertising and none endorses this bottle. The herb the seller singles out for hearing is ginkgo, and the evidence runs the other way: the 1,121-person trial found nothing, [1] a Cochrane review of four trials with 1,543 people found no evidence that ginkgo helps when a ringing is the main complaint, [2] the federal agency for complementary health says the same in one sentence, [3] and the 2014 guideline of the American academy of ear, nose and throat specialists recommends against ginkgo, melatonin, zinc and other dietary supplements for a persistent, bothersome ringing. [4] See section 3.
"Ringing in a quiet room isn't age: just avoid these 3 drinks""The 3 evening drinks now tied to ringing ears"	Exaggerated Another common construction we do not run, and the number moves between versions because it is an advertising variable rather than a finding. A ringing in a quiet room travels above all with hearing that has slipped a little, which happens to almost everybody with age. No drink has been shown in a trial to cause it or to quiet it. The one large prospective study of a drink we can cite followed 65,085 women for eighteen years and found that those who took the most caffeine were somewhat less likely to develop a ringing, not more. [5] See section 2.
"Hear a ringing in a quiet room? Check this first"	Partly true Half right, and we run a plainer version of it. If you hear a sound in a quiet room that nobody else hears, the sensible first step is a hearing examination, and the ear, nose and throat guideline asks for a prompt, comprehensive one when the sound is in one ear only, has lasted six months or more, or comes with difficulty hearing. [4] What is wrong is the implication that "this" is a bottle. It is not. See sections 4 and 5.
"The overlooked cause of ringing after 60, and the 80-day bottle for it"	Our headline was wrong We withdraw this construction outright. There is no single overlooked cause, and "for it" is a claim no trial supports for this bottle. The "80 days" comes from the seller's own listing, and it does not survive the seller's own directions: at half a milliliter three times a day, a two-ounce bottle is about thirty-nine mornings. We have printed that arithmetic in the article rather than repeating the eighty.
"Quiet a ringing tonight with this old herbal formula"	Withdrawn We do not run this and will not. Nothing quiets a ringing tonight, and the bottle we sell has never been tested for it in anybody. The things that help people live with the sound are a hearing examination, a hearing aid when the test finds the hearing has faded, sound at night and a form of talking therapy aimed at how much it bothers you. [4] A bottle that promises tonight is promising something nobody has measured.
"A full year to send it back: the return window most sellers won't give you"	Partly true True as far as it goes, and incomplete, which is why the article spends a whole section on it. The year is real, it is unusually long, and it is the best thing on the listing. It also carries four conditions: at least thirty days of use first, all containers returned opened and unopened, your name and order number in the box, and shipping at your expense both ways. And it protects your money rather than your months: the time you spend taking something three times a day does not come back with the refund.

2. Every drink the headlines point at

Headlines in this category refer to "3 drinks" or "the evening drink" without ever naming them. Here is what advertisers mean when they say it, and what the research actually supports for each one. Where a study is cited, it is observational unless stated otherwise: it can show that two things travel together in a population, not that one causes the other.

3. Every food and herb the headlines point at

The food versions of the headline refer to "1 herb", "3 foods" or "a kitchen herb". Here is what was meant, and what actually stands behind it.

4. The "hearing tests" the headlines invite you to take

Several headline families in this category invite you to test your ears online: can you hear this tone, count the beeps, if you can hear this your ears are younger than you think. There is no validated test on an advertising page, and we cannot give you a real one, because a real one does not work that way.

What a real hearing examination looks like. An audiologist measures the quietest sound you can hear at each pitch in each ear, in a sound-treated booth with calibrated equipment, and plots the result. The ear, nose and throat guideline asks for that examination promptly when the sound is in one ear only, has lasted six months or more, or comes with difficulty hearing. ^[4] Three things make it different from a telephone playing tones:

• The equipment is calibrated and the room is quiet; your telephone's speaker and your kitchen are neither.
• Each ear is tested separately, which is how a one-sided loss, the finding that matters most, is caught.
• The result is read against your history, everything you take, and a look inside the ear canal, where something perfectly ordinary can account for the whole thing.

The examination is still the one thing on this page that can find something that gets dealt with, and what it finds is read by a professional rather than by a headline.

5. What actually has the best evidence

If we only had one section to be useful in, this would be it. Not one item on it is a supplement, and the guideline written by the ear, nose and throat specialists' own academy recommends against ginkgo, melatonin, zinc and other dietary supplements for a persistent, bothersome ringing. ^[4]

• Get a proper hearing examination, promptly if the sound is in one ear only, has lasted six months or more, or comes with difficulty hearing. ^[4]
• If the test finds the hearing has faded, have a hearing-aid evaluation, which the guideline recommends in those words. ^[4]
• Protect the hearing you still have: a motorcycle, a concert or headphones at their loudest, for long enough, is the one exposure you can still do something about, and earplugs and distance are the protection. In the national survey, a ringing was about three times as common in people with steady loud noise at work. ^[12]
• Use sound at night: a fan, a radio left low, an app playing rain, so the room is not silent enough for a thin tone to be the only thing in it.
• Ask about the talking therapies: the guideline recommends sound therapy and a form of cognitive behavioral therapy for a persistent, bothersome ringing, both aimed at how much the sound bothers you, which is the part that can change. ^[4]
• Have everything you take looked at by a pharmacist, with this bottle in the bag, and have your ear canals looked at by somebody with the right instrument.

These are unglamorous. They cannot be delivered in a headline, some of them cost money and time, and none of them can be sold to you by us. They are also, by a wide margin, the best-supported things on this entire page.

One number for scale, from the same guideline: it estimates that 10 to 15 percent of adults experience a ringing, and that more than 50 million people in the United States have reported it. ^[4] That is a very large number of people and a very short list of things that help, which is exactly the gap a forty-dollar bottle is designed to sit in.

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6. Ingredient guide: what is actually in the bottle we sell

What each of the five herbs printed on the label of Native Remedies TinnaRex is, what it is traditionally used for, and what the cited research says. The label prints no amount for any of them: the ingredients tab says the five are present "in therapeutic dosage" and gives no number, the serving is half a milliliter, and the base is vegetable glycerin and deionized water. Two things are worth holding in mind while you read. Where a study is cited below, it used one herb at a time, at a weighed dose, in a different preparation, and none of it tested this bottle. And the word "standardized" does not appear anywhere on this label, so the strength of every one of the five is the maker's to declare. Read the statement at the end of this section before you buy anything.

St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), flowering herb

A perennial herb with yellow flowers marked by black glands and leaves that look perforated when held to the light, common in meadows and along roadsides across Europe and North America. It blooms around late June, near the feast of St. John the Baptist, which is where the name comes from. In this bottle it is the wild-crafted flowering herb, first of five, in vegetable glycerin and water.

Traditional and everyday use. Used in Greek, Islamic and Chinese systems of traditional medicine and, in modern shops, sold mainly as a mood herb. The seller lists it here for the nervous system.

What the research says. No trial has tested St. John's wort for the ears, for hearing or for ringing in the ears, and the seller cites none. What the research does establish is on the other side of the ledger: the National Institutes of Health states that St. John's wort can interact in dangerous, sometimes life-threatening ways with a variety of medicines. ^[10] This product prints no amount.

Amount per serving in TinnaRex · 60 mL. not stated (first of five herbs; the label's own caution: not with warfarin or other anticoagulants, and avoid excessive sun while taking it)

Good to know. The label itself says not to use this product with warfarin or other anticoagulants and to avoid excessive sun or UV light while taking St. John's wort. The NIH lists interactions with so many kinds of everyday medicine that the safe assumption is that it interacts with whatever you take: it weakens some of what people take every day and amplifies others, and at large doses it can cause severe skin reactions after sun exposure. ^[10] If you take anything daily, ask your doctor or pharmacist before this bottle, and do not stop any medicine to make room for it.

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), leaf, in a liquid herbal extract

The fan-shaped leaf of the ginkgo tree, a species so ancient it is called a living fossil, planted along city streets across the world. Here it is the certified-organic leaf in a liquid extract as one of five herbs in a blend (cane alcohol and water in the Herb Pharm blend; vegetable glycerin and water in TinnaRex): a different thing from the standardized leaf extract (120 mg tablets and the like) used in the large trials, and from the homeopathic dilution found in some sprays.

Traditional and everyday use. Ginkgo leaf extract has been sold as a "memory herb" for decades.

What the research says. In the largest trial to date, 3,069 adults aged 72 to 96 took 120 mg of a standardized extract twice a day for a median of 6.1 years and declined at the same rate as the placebo group in memory, attention, language and every other domain measured.^[13] The National Institutes of Health states there is no conclusive evidence that ginkgo is helpful for any health condition.^[14] This product gives no ginkgo amount; the whole five-herb blend is 646 mg per 0.7 ml serving, and that figure is for the liquid extract, not for standardized leaf extract. On the ears: the largest trial of a standardized ginkgo extract in people with ringing in their ears (1,121 people, 12 weeks, 50 mg three times a day) found no difference from placebo, ^[1] a Cochrane review of four trials found no evidence it helps when the ringing is the main complaint, ^[2] the NIH says research suggests it is not helpful for that ringing, ^[3] and the 2014 guideline of the American ear, nose and throat academy recommends against ginkgo and other supplements for it. ^[4] TinnaRex prints no amount of ginkgo at all.

Amount per serving in TinnaRex · 60 mL. not stated (the herb the seller says was "researched for its ability to support healthy hearing"; the largest trial of its extract on ringing found nothing)

Good to know. Ginkgo may increase the risk of bleeding in people who take anything that thins the blood; fresh ginkgo seeds are toxic. Talk to your doctor before use if you take anything daily or are due for an operation.

Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus, formerly Rosmarinus officinalis), leaf

A small evergreen shrub of the mint family, native to the dry, rocky Mediterranean coast, whose needle-like leaves are one of the world's most familiar cooking herbs. The FDA lists rosemary among spices generally recognized as safe for their intended use in food.

Traditional and everyday use. In ancient Greece and Rome rosemary was associated with memory, and in folklore it has long been an emblem of remembrance. In the kitchen it flavors roasts, breads and oils.

What the research says. In a small crossover trial of 28 adults with an average age of 75, a single 750 mg dose of dried rosemary leaf, close to a culinary amount, was associated with faster speed of memory compared with placebo, while a much larger dose (6,000 mg) had the opposite effect.^[7] More was not better.

Amount per serving in TinnaRex · 60 mL. not stated (the kitchen herb; the seller calls it a "circulation tonic")

Good to know. Culinary amounts are widely used. In the trial above, a very large single dose (6,000 mg) slowed memory measures, so more is not better. Talk to your doctor before use if you have a health condition or take anything daily.

Oatstraw (Avena sativa), green stalk and leaf

The green stalk and leaf of the common oat, the same cereal grass whose seed is the breakfast grain, cut and dried as an herb rather than threshed for the grain. It is a different preparation from the milky green oat seed extract used in the trials, and from rolled oats.

Traditional and everyday use. A traditional "nerve tonic" in European herbalism, drunk as a tea; the grain has been a staple food for millennia.

What the research says. The trials of oat as an herb used concentrated extracts of the green seed in capsules, with mixed results on thinking in healthy adults, ^{[8] [9]} not oatstraw in glycerin, and none looked at the ears or hearing. The seller cites none. This product prints no amount.

Amount per serving in TinnaRex · 60 mL. not stated (the green stalk and leaf of the oat plant, not the grain)

Good to know. No specific safety warnings were found in the NIH herb references for oat herb; the listing says the product is gluten-free. As with any daily herb, talk to your doctor first if you have a health condition or take anything daily.

Vervain (Verbena), wild-crafted herb, listed as "European Blue Vervain"

Blue vervain (Verbena hastata) is a perennial of the vervain family that grows across the continental United States and much of southern Canada, with tall spikes of small violet-blue flowers. Common or European vervain (Verbena officinalis) is a different species, native to Europe, with delicate spikes of two-lipped mauve flowers. The listing's name mixes the two, and the label is not shown, so this guide cannot say which plant is in the bottle.

Traditional and everyday use. Both species have long histories as bitter tonics in folk herbalism; the seller lists it for tension and the nervous system.

What the research says. No controlled trial in people on the ears, hearing or ringing in the ears could be found for either species, and the seller cites none. Descriptive only. This product prints no amount.

Amount per serving in TinnaRex · 60 mL. not stated (blue vervain is a North American plant and European vervain another species; the listing does not say which)

Good to know. No specific warnings were found in the NIH herb references. As with any daily herb, ask your doctor if you are pregnant, have a health condition or take anything daily.

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This information does not constitute medical advice and it should not be relied upon as such. This product is not a substitute for medication or other treatment prescribed by a physician or health care provider. Consult your doctor before starting any dietary supplement.

7. What we can and cannot promise

Set against the headlines that brought you here, this is the complete and honest position.

Things we cannot promise, and that nobody selling you a bottle of herbs can:

• That this bottle will quiet, reduce or change a ringing in your ears. Its main herb was tested for exactly that in 1,121 people and came out level with a dummy capsule. ^[1]
• That it will improve your hearing, protect it from noise, or clear anything out of an ear.
• That it can replace a hearing examination, a hearing aid, a look at everything you take, or a look inside your ear canal.
• That any ear specialist or audiologist recommends it. None has, and the specialists' own guideline recommends against the category. ^[4]
• That an online tone test can tell you anything reliable about your ears.
• That "supports healthy ears and clear hearing", "fast-acting", or the listing's description of a product without unwanted effects describe a measured benefit. They are label words and sales words, and the same listing carries the FDA statement and a caution about anything that thins the blood.
• That a bottle lasts 80 days. At the adult dose printed on the same listing, two fluid ounces at one and a half milliliters a day is about thirty-nine mornings.

Things we can say honestly:

• It is a two-ounce amber bottle of five named herbs in vegetable glycerin and deionized water, alcohol-free, sold by Native Remedies, a brand of Silver Star Brands, Inc. of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a company with a street address, a telephone number, an email and a returns desk; the listing says it contains no gluten and no lactose and suits vegetarians.
• It contains no caffeine, no alcohol, no sugar and no zinc. It contains St. John's wort, which has a long interaction list, and ginkgo, which the label itself says not to take with anything that thins the blood.
• The label's direction is half a milliliter in a quarter cup of water, juice or milk, three times a day, for adults and children ten and over. At that dose a bottle is about thirty-nine to forty mornings and a little over a dollar a day.
• The price, the shipping terms and the return terms are exactly what is written on the seller's pages: economy delivery in the United States at $7.95 on the day we read it, and a full year to return the product after trying it for at least thirty days, with all opened and unopened containers, your name and order number, sent to the seller's Oshkosh address, ideally with a return authorization, for a refund of the price less shipping. Nothing more, and no promise made elsewhere overrides them.
• The customer reviews we quote are real and public on the seller's site: sixteen reviews averaging 4.1 stars, nine at five, three at four, two at three and two at one. We quote four of them word for word, including the single star, we mark a confirmed buyer only where the seller's review system marks a verified purchase, and we left out the reviews that named a condition or claimed the sound had stopped. The small pictures beside them are illustrations, not the reviewers. Individual experiences are not evidence.
• We are paid a commission if you buy. That is our interest in this, stated plainly.
• Nothing here is medical advice, and none of it replaces your own clinician or a hearing examination.

8. Questions people ask us

Did an ear specialist or an audiologist really say this?

No. Those attributions are advertising language. No named or identifiable specialist made those statements, and none has endorsed this product.

Will this bottle quiet the sound?

We cannot promise that and nobody honestly can. The main herb in this bottle was tested for exactly that in 1,121 people for twelve weeks and did no better than a dummy capsule, ^[1] and a pooled review of four trials in 1,543 people found the same. ^[2]

Is coffee making it worse?

The only large prospective study we can cite found the opposite direction, in women: more caffeine, somewhat less ringing over eighteen years. ^[5] Caffeine late in the day costs you a night, and a poor night makes any sound harder to ignore, which is a timing point rather than a reason to quit.

Should I stop anything I take because of this page?

No, not on your own and not because of an advertisement. Put everything you take in one bag with this bottle and take it to a pharmacy counter, and ask whether anything in the bag argues with St. John's wort or ginkgo. ^{[3] [10]}

How much of each herb is in it?

The label does not say. The ingredients tab says the five herbs are "in therapeutic dosage" and prints no number for any of them; the only quantity on the page is the half-milliliter serving.

Why does the listing say 80 days when your article says about forty?

Because the listing's own directions are half a milliliter three times a day, which is one and a half milliliters a day, and a two-ounce bottle holds about 59 of them. We do not know how the seller arrived at eighty; a smaller dose for a younger child would explain it, but the directions tab gives a dose only for ages ten and over.

What does the one-year window actually require?

Trying the product for at least thirty days, then returning all opened and unopened containers within a year, with your name and order number, to the seller's returns address in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, ideally with a return authorization requested first. The refund is the price less shipping, to your original payment method, and those are the seller's own terms, quoted from its pages.

If your own headlines are exaggerated, why should I believe this page?

A fair question. Do not take our word for it: the references below are real, published sources you can look up yourself, and nothing in sections 4 and 5 requires you to buy anything or to trust us. If this page and a headline disagree, believe this page.

Does this page cost anything?

No. There is nothing to sign up for, and you are welcome to read it, close the tab and never come back.

Can I check these claims myself?

Yes, and you should. Every numbered reference below can be found by searching its authors and journal, and the government fact sheets are published in plain language and sell nothing.

References

These are the sources behind the claims marked with a number above. The ginkgo trial was a twelve-week placebo-controlled trial of 1,121 people; the Cochrane reviews pooled four trials of ginkgo and three of zinc; the guideline is the 2014 clinical practice guideline of the American academy of ear, nose and throat specialists; the caffeine finding and the national survey are observational, which can show association but not cause; the rosemary and oat trials measured thinking rather than hearing; and the government pages are public health information. We have deliberately not cited anything for the claims we describe as exaggerated, because there is nothing to cite.

1. Drew S., Davies E. (2001). BMJ 322(7278):73 doi.org
2. Hilton M.P., Zimmermann E.F., Hunt W.T. (2013). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2013(3):CD003852 doi.org
3. NIH NCCIH. "Ginkgo" nccih.nih.gov
4. Tunkel D.E. et al. (2014). Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery 151(2 Suppl):S1-S40 doi.org
5. Glicksman J.T., Curhan S.G., Curhan G.C. (2014). American Journal of Medicine 127(8):739-743 doi.org
6. EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (2015). Scientific Opinion on the safety of caffeine. EFSA Journal 13(5):4102 doi.org
7. Pengelly A. et al. (2012). Journal of Medicinal Food 15(1):10-17 doi.org
8. Kennedy D.O. et al. (2020). Nutrients 12(6):1598 doi.org
9. Wong R.H. et al. (2012). Nutrients 4(5):331-342 doi.org
10. NIH NCCIH. "St. John's Wort" nccih.nih.gov
11. Person O.C., Puga M.E., da Silva E.M., Torloni M.R. (2016). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2016(11):CD009832 doi.org
12. Bhatt J.M., Lin H.W., Bhattacharyya N. (2016). JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery 142(10):959-965 doi.org
13. Snitz B.E. et al. (2009). JAMA 302(24):2663-2670 doi.org
14. NIH NCCIH. "Ginkgo" (updated February 2025) nccih.nih.gov

Citing a study does not mean the study is about this product. The ginkgo trial tested a standardized extract at a weighed dose, not this bottle; none of the other research tested Native Remedies TinnaRex, and none of it supports it.

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