Ginseng, North America Health Benefits and Side Effects

Ginseng is a slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, the genus Panax, belonging to the family Araliaceae. Depending to the climate where it grows, ginseng can be classified mainly into Panax ginseng Asian ginseng (root), Red ginseng, wild ginseng, American ginseng (root).
North America Ginseng is also known as P. quinquefolius American ginseng (root), is considered as yin promoting, as the roots is growth from a hot area, according to traditional Chinese medicine. Ginseng North America has been used in TCM to quench thirst, heal deficiency of lungs and chronic cough and to treat tiredness and unrest, chronic fever, etc.

Health Benefits
1. Colorectal cancer
In the investigation of American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L., Araliaceae) and its anti-cancer potentialfound that three genes were up-regulated (AKAPA8L, PMPCB and PDE5A) and three were down-regulated (PITPNA, DUS2L and RIC8A). Although further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms of action, our findings should expand the understanding of the molecular framework of American ginseng as an anti-cancer agent, according to "Characterization of gene expression regulated by American ginseng and ginsenoside Rg3 in human colorectal cancer cells" by Luo X, Wang CZ, Chen J, Song WX, Luo J, Tang N, He BC, Kang Q, Wang Y, Du W, He TC, Yuan CS.(1)

2. Cardiovascular disease
In the demonstration of emerging evidence suggests ginseng has therapeutic potential in cardiovascular disease found that ginseng treatment significantly decreased infarct size and myocardial apoptosis following I/R in WT mice, but not in either eNOS(-/-) mice or WT mice treated with LY294002. We conclude that ginseng treatment protects the heart from I/R injury via upregulation of eNOS expression. Our study suggests that ginseng may serve as a potential therapeutic agent to limit myocardial I/R injury, according to "North American ginseng protects the heart from ischemia and reperfusion injury via upregulation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase" by Wu Y, Lu X, Xiang FL, Lui EM, Feng Q.(2)

3. Pediatric upper respiratory tract infection
In the evaluation of Panax quinquefolius (American ginseng root extract) standardized to contain 80% poly-furanosyl-pyranosyl-saccharides and theirs effect on upper respiratory tract infections in childdren found that standard doses of ginseng were well tolerated and merit additional evaluation with regard to treatment of pediatric upper respiratory tract infection, according to "Safety and tolerability of North American ginseng extract in the treatment of pediatric upper respiratory tract infection: a phase II randomized, controlled trial of 2 dosing schedules" by Vohra S, Johnston BC, Laycock KL, Midodzi WK, Dhunnoo I, Harris E, Baydala L.(3)

4. Glycemia and insulinemia
In the assessment the evidence indicates that the glycemia-lowering effect of American ginseng root may be batch dependent. found that American ginseng decreased postprandial glycemia and insulinemia; however, 40% of the batches did not reduce glycemia with the anticipated magnitude, irrespective of their saponin composition, according to "Five batches representative of Ontario-grown American ginseng root produce comparable reductions of postprandial glycemia in healthy individuals" by

Dascalu A, Sievenpiper JL, Jenkins AL, Stavro MP, Leiter LA, Arnason JT, Vuksan V.(4)

Sources
(1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18425323
(2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21621617
(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18676527
(4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18066131