As the adoption of high caloric diet is recently increased through the progress of living standard, lipid metabolic disorders have been markedly increased, and it is populary recognized that an excessive intake of meat frequently creates hypercholesterolemia. Some investigators reported of atherosclerosis caused by cholesterol ester deposition of the aortic intima in hypercholesterolemia. In that while, others have described cholelithiasis and cholesteatosis in hyperlipidemia.
Concerning the relationship between ginseng saponin and hypercholesterolemia, besides Sokolova´s report, many studies indicated that ginseng saponin not only diminishes serum cholesterol (CHL) level and liver injury but also accelerates its recovery.
This study is conducted to evaluate the effect of ginseng saponin upon hyperlipidemia and fatty liver included by lipid administration. Eighty normal rabbits weighing about 1.8 kg have been used for the experiment and divided into 1) basic diet fed group (control), 2) lipid administered group, 3) lipid & ginseng saponin administered group and 4) ginseng saponin administered group. The basic diet was composed of 70-80g bean residue, 100-250g vegetable and 80-1008 pellet diet per rabbit per day. The lipid diet was composed of basic diet &
cholesterol 500mg/kg of ginseng saponin, was administered to appropriate groups per rabbit per day.
In doing this, the liver has been examined grossly and microscopieally, and the serum glutamic oxalacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamic pyruvic transaminase (GPT), alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin, CHL, phospholipid (PL), triglyceride (TG) levels and lipoprotein fractions in each rabbit have been also measured.
The results obtained from this study are as follows;
1) In the lipid administered group, serum GOT, GPT, alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin,
CHL, PL, TG, very low density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein were increased and
high density lipoprotein (HDL) decreased significantly. The liver revealed marked fatty
changes.
2) In lipid & ginseng saponin administered group, serum GOT, GPT, alkaline phosphatase, total bilirubin, CHL, TG, PL were decreased and HDL increased apparently in the comparison of those in the lipid administered group. The fatty changes were also obviously repressed.
3) In the ginseng saponin administered group, no significant changes were noted.
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