Role of Ginseng In Preventing Heart Disease From COVID-19
Epicentre News • 01 March 2022
In many previous studies, ginseng and ginsenoside have been known to have antioxidant, blood flow improvement, improvement of vascular and heart function, blood pressure control, suppression of myocardial infarction and heart failure, and antiarrhythmia. So, ginseng and ginsenoside have a possibility to suppress heart complications caused by COVID-19. This is the basis of Hossain, Mohammad Amjad, and Jong-Hoon Kim study published in the journal Ginseng Research.
What is Ginseng and Ginsenoside?
Ginseng is a type of slow-growing perennial plant (plant that grows over a number of years). Ginseng was one of the most important medicinal plants in ancient Chinese medicine. The root was used for first aid, health care, and the treatment of coma, gastrointestinal disease, and cardiovascular disease.
Ginsenosides are known as the key active ingredient of ginseng. More than a hundred ginsenosides have been reported in Panax ginseng.
Ginseng (or ginsenosides) has been widely used in Oriental traditional medicine and has become increasingly popular in the West for its tonic effect and various therapeutic effects on cardiovascular, central nervous system, and endocrine.
The Science Behind this Claim
Hossain, Mohammad Amjad, and Jong-Hoon Kim have drawn on studies which show that ginseng or ginsenosides provide heart protection over the past few years of research, especially through their the effect of protecting the heart from the having a heart attack (myocardial infarctions).
The present review suggested that 20(S)-ginsenoside Rg3 and 20(R)-ginsenoside Rg3 effectively prevented viral infections of COVID-19 in cells with receptors of human COVID-19 spike glycoproteins (what the COVID-19 virus uses to enter our cells).
But it must be noted that it is worth looking at other journal’s articles to balance out the claims of this research paper, as it was published in a journal literally called, the “Journal of Ginseng Research“. So arguably they would want to promote the benefits of Ginseng as they have dedicated an entire journal to the plant
So we looked at Adusei-Mensah et al., (2021), who did a systematic review and meta-analysis on Ginseng-based clinical trials (the scientists looked at a bunch of other studies and found a result by combining all their findings together).
They found that, Ginseng was effective in reducing COVID-19 by 38% and shortening the infection period by 3-days in all trials compared to the placebo (Adusei-Mensah et al., 2021).
To get this result, they looked at 596 articles during their study. But after screening all these studies, they only really analysed 5 in particular because these studies used randomized controlled trials (considered a ‘high quality‘ kind of study) and which had results that were directly relevant to what they were investigating (Adusei-Mensah et al., 2021).
Do Other Scientists Back Up Their Claims? = Basically Yes
Is This Research Conclusive?
There is still no direct evidence that natural products such as ginseng will be significantly effective for COVID-19 patients. In addition, there is no direct studies that ginseng and ginsenosides prevent heart side effects such as arrhythmia, myocardial infarction, heart failure, and vascular thrombosis in COVID-19 patients.
But COVID-19 is new. There is still time for more conclusive studies to come to light.
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