A Systematic Quantitative Analysis of the Literature of the High Variability in Ginseng (Panax spp.)
Should ginseng be trusted in diabetes?
- John L. Sievenpiper, MSC13,
- John T. Arnason, PHD2,
- Edward Vidgen, BSC3,
- Lawrence A. Leiter, MD13 and
- Vladimir Vuksan, PHD13
- 1Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Centre, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada
- 2Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
- 3Department of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
- Address correspondence to Vladimir Vuksan, PhD, Clinical Nutrition and Risk Factor Modification Centre, St. Michael’s Hospital, no. 6, 138-61 Queen St. East, Toronto, OntarioM5C2T2, Canada. E-mail: v.vuksan{at}utoronto.ca
Herbs have experienced an unprecedented surge in popularity (1). This has occurred in the absence of adequate safety and efficacy evidence, prompting calls for rigorous clinical assessments (2). Complicating these assessments is compositional variability. This is a concern with one of the most popular herbs, ginseng (3). The principal reference components, to which pharmacological effects have been attributed, are its ginsenosides (steroidal glycosides). We undertook a systematic quantitative analysis of the literature to assess the coefficient of variation (CV) in ginsenosides across species, assay technique, and ginsenoside type.
The PubMed (1966-present), EMBASE (1980-present), HealthSTAR (1975-present), Cochrane library (issue 2, 2002), and AGRICOLA (1979-present) databases were searched using “ginsenosides AND (chromatography OR HPLC OR HPTLC OR TLC OR LC OR DCC OR GC OR ELISA OR UV OR MS OR NMR OR ELSD)”. One-hundred eleven articles were identified. Two reviewers applied three inclusion criteria: publication quality: peer-reviewed; end point: quantitative ginsenoside concentrations; and ginseng …
