Ginseng has perhaps the longest continuous history of usage of any healing herb.
Resembling at times a human body, ginseng roots have been considered to have wide ranging effects, benefiting the body as a whole.
Red ginseng is always produced from cultivated roots, usually from either China or South Korea.
Red ginseng (simplified: ??; traditional: ??), is white ginseng that has been heated, either through steaming or sun-drying.
According to TCM, American ginseng promotes yin energy, cleans excess yang in the body, and calms the body.
The German botanist Nees Von Esenbeck first classified Korean ginseng as Panax shinseng var.
Ginseng has a long oral tradition of being a plant with the ability to cure all human diseases.
One characteristic of adaptogens, such as ginseng is considered, is that they have a normalizing effect.
Several companies now offer a standardized extract of ginseng with known amounts of ginsenosides.
The soil stores water from rain and snow, allowing plants to have a continuous supply and helping to prevent destructive flooding.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Panax ginseng C.A.Meyer (Korean ginseng) promotes yang energy, improves circulation, increases blood supply, revitalizes and aids recovery from weakness after illness, and stimulates the body.
Ginseng water extract has an LD50 in mice of 1400 milligrams/kg (Gold et al.
A double-blind, crossover study of red ginseng's effects on impotence show a marked positive effect (Hong et al.
Within the ginseng plant, the precursors of the panaxadiol type and panaxatriol type are known respectively as protopanaxadiol and protopanaxatriol.
Davis' Drug Guide (Deglin 2006) states that ginseng should not be taken under the following conditions: pregnancy, lactation, certain mental disorders, hypertension, asthma, and infection.
One possible reason for this is that the ginseng used has not been analyzed to determine the concentration of active ingredients.
Most North American ginseng is produced in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia, and in the state of Wisconsin in the United States.
Ginseng is a group of plants belonging to the genus Panax, consisting of several species of slow-growing perennials with fleshy roots, in the family Araliaceae.
The English word ginseng derives from the Chinese term rŠ¹nsh?n (simplified: ??; traditional: ??), literally "man root" (referring to the root's characteristic shape, resembling the body of a person).
The guide says common oral doses of ginseng are 1-2 grams of root per day or extract at 900 milligrams/day.
Ginseng is usually thought of as an Asian plant, but American ginseng has been used by Native Americans in the United States for centuries.
Wild ginseng is ginseng that has not been planted and cultivated domestically, rather it is that which grows naturally and is harvested from wherever it is found to be growing.
Sometimes referred to as the "root of heaven," ginseng is a good example of an ancient herb that Western medicine is just beginning to study and understand.
Once ginseng has been harvested, it cannot be planted optimally in the same soil for 15 years.
Asian ginseng grows in Manchuria and Korea, a colder area, so ginseng from there is supposed to be very yang.
Many of the physiological effects of ginseng have been reputed to be due to a stimulation of the synthesis of NO (nitrogen monoxide or nitric oxide) in various organs and tissues.
The first mention of ginseng as a medicine was by the Chinese physician, Chang Chung-ching, who lived during the Latter Han Dynasty (196-230 C.E.).
A study also showed that red ginseng reduced the relapse of gastric cancer versus control subjects (Suh et al.
The word ginseng originates from the Japanese reading of the very same Chinese characters.
The following list contains all known species of ginseng (Awang 2003).
Many plants contain a group of compounds known as saponins, but the saponins within ginseng are unique and have been named ginsenosides.
Panax quinquefolius, North American ginseng, is particularly prized in Chinese societies, and many ginseng packages are prominently colored red, white, and blue.
Numerous polysaccharides or glycans have been reported in Panax ginseng and named sequentially panaxan A through U.
The ginseng root has been the focus of many chemical studies in an attempt to understand the nature of its active ingredients.
Many people refer to "Siberian Ginseng" (Eleutherococcus senticosus) as a type of ginseng but it is not considered a "true" ginseng.
The earliest documented usage of ginseng (Bae 1978) appears in a two thousand-year-old Chinese book of the Chien Han Era (33-48 B.C.E.).
The Korean ginseng plant, Panax ginseng, prospers in a cool, temperate climate at a latitude of 30-48 degrees North and an altitude of 100-800 meters.
Panax quinquefolius, North American ginseng, is particularly prized in Chinese societies, and many ginseng packages are prominently colored red, white, and blue.
All ginseng products that are sold must bear the seal of the Office of Monopoly.