Based upon Shennong´s Ancient Chinese Medical Textbook and Tsorngji Mingyi Byelu, ginseng has been widely used for over 2,000 years in oriental countries. Scientific basic medical study or clinical study on ginseng was started 1910´s in Eastern countries and from the 1950´s in Western countries. To obtain kowledge of clinical studies on Korean ginseng, I investigated the following items 1) Oriental pharmacological documents. 2) the start and current state of ginseng research. 3) clinical studies, 4) epidemiological studies. 5) non-medical human studies. 6) foreign evaluation in published papers, and 7) future perspectives of clinical study.
Although wide and profound research has been carried on the effect of ginseng (diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, liver diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, stress, brain function, aging, antiradiation effect, anemia, hemopoiesis, immuomodulating effect, and tonic effect), systemic clinical study to determine the therapeutic effects of specific disease have hardly been done even in other countries.
Clinical study or researches with human as the target, on ginseng has been performed in the field of body temperature. pulse, clinical symptoms and hematological findings, fatigue, performances, anemia, essential hypertension, blood sugar, serum cholesterol, lipid and prolactin, adrenocortical function, impotence, hypospermia, male sterility, climacteric disorder, anticancer effects, cancer preventive effects, and viral hepatitis, adverse effects, and prefered type of ginseng.
At the same time as trying preventives or therapeutics from dietary or natural products, scientific research to support that ginseng is not a mystery, should be performed to prove the effectiveness of Korean ginseng in the treatment of certain diseases using scientific methods or epidemiological approach.
|