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Ginseng, oh Ginseng, How I love Thee
Of all the herbs and roots that might be considered “exotic”, ginseng is probably the most popular. I know when I have conversations with people who don’t have an interest in alternative medicine its name seems to pop up the most. For whatever reason it’s embedded itself in the popular vernacular when it comes to superfoods.
I’d bet $25 that most people don’t really know what it does, or even what it is. It’s just one of those things that’s “really good for you!”
Let’s slay the mistaken perceptions, shall we?
Ginseng: One Name, Many Organisms
Ginseng isn’t one particular plant or root, or even a particular family of plants. It’s just a collection of various shrubs across the world that are labeled as a form of ginseng when they exhibit some effects on human health, and even those are varied.
Originally ginseng referred to a family of plants called Panax ginseng. Panax plants are also known as American Ginseng and Red Ginseng. The other types got their name and were discovered to have remarkable health benefits. Given the popularity of the ginseng name, it was the easiest way to label them.
What Does Ginseng Do?
To varying degrees the different types of ginseng have (or might have) the following health benefits:
- Improve physical performance
- Improve sexual performance
- Improve the body’s ability to adapt to metabolic stress
- Improve memory and other sorts of cognitive functioning
- Improve cellular health (inflammation, free radicals, protect against cancer, etc)
Keep in mind that not *every* form of ginseng does this, and ginseng does not have these benefits beyond the shadow of a doubt. All I’m saying is that there have been at least a few well conducted studies or thereabouts that have demonstrated an ability for some type ginseng to have these benefits on some margin.
In many cases the doses you’d have to take of ginseng to get the desired effects would probably be much larger than what would be comfortable, and maybe even dangerous.
Ginseng comes in 5 different flavors
The Different Types of Ginseng
So with that all said here are the major types of ginseng that you can consume at your local health food store.
- American Ginseng – Panax Quinquefolius – Good for fighting fatigue, *possibly* improving sexual performance, and improving cellular health in general
- Red Ginseng – Panax Ginseng – The original one. A good metabolic regulator that seems to perk up your cells in a variety of environments, including some forms of cancer.
- Indian Ginseng – Withania Somnifera – Has a variety of neuroprotective effects, might improve some forms of cognition, and likely a powerful anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory.
- Siberian Ginseng – Eleutherococcus Senticosus – Particularly good at allowing your body to cope with metabolic stress. Cellular regulator, and provides a sustained energy boost/improvement in physical performance. Also called eleuthero root.
- Brazilian Ginseng – Pfaffia Paniculata – Seems to improve physical performance somewhat, a few anti-cancer properties, and likely scavenges free radicals within the body.
Among these plants, american ginseng and red/korean ginseng are the only two that share the same two taxonomies. The rest were given the name ginseng because it’s a popular term. In general all of these plants are considered an “adaptogen”, which is a type of herb that mediates metabolic stress within the body. To this effect they have similar physiological properties, but I’d be careful about substituting one for the other if you’re consuming it for a specific health purpose.
In general the health benefits of ginseng range from “probably true” to “hard to say for sure, but things look promising.” The claims about sexual performance are mostly speculative at this point, and the links between digesting different types of ginseng and improved athletic performance are pretty anecdotal. Nothing to get too excited about.
If there is a common theme among the different ginseng plants it’s their ability to help mediate different types of cellular functions within the body. Your body’s ability to react to physiological stress seem to perk up when it takes ginseng.
Side Effects and Dosage
Whenever you’re thinking about regularly taking a medicinal/metabolic herb, there are three dimensions you want to consider:
- You want to take enough to observe a noticeable improvement in your body
- You don’t want to take so much that you might put yourself at risk
- You want to take it in the right form. Often the nutrients of a plant are localized to a specific part of the plant (roots, leaves, bark, etc).
In the case of ginseng, somewhere between 200-500mg one to two times a day seems reasonable. This falls into the range that was used in most studies that have revealed favorable results but is still considered safe.
Ginseng for the most part seems benign, but I know of two studies which have found Brazilian ginseng to cause discomfort if taken in amounts greater than what I recommended. (See references 7 and 8).
Also be careful if you’re mixing and matching different herbs that are metabolically potent. I know in the past I have made myself nautious and tingly from taking different herbs together.
How To Take It
The nutrients of the ginseng plant are typically found in its roots, which you can see below. This is true for all types of ginseng.
The roots of the ginseng plant are where the nutrients lie
For this reason I like to take a ginseng supplement only if it specifically states “Brazilian Ginseng root”, or something similar. The phytonutrients found in ginseng are not available in the leaf. I don’t recommend taking an extract that’s isolated ginsensides or something similar. Ginseng root that’s ground into a powder is the best bet if you want optimal nutrient absorption.