Ginseng News from Catskillginseng.com

USF&W ginseng workshop;  Meeting called by the US fish and wildlife service intended “to foster continued cooperation among F &W, the state, and the industry…. And to share information on the biological and trade status of wild American ginseng, with the goal of achieving long-term sustainability of wild ginseng.”  

Attendee; AHPA(American herbal products association, a majority of the major ginseng buyers in the county), few others sang growers, Bob Beyfuss formerly of Cornell cooperative extension. Numerous presentations were made at the workshop by academic and federal researchers.

Major NIH research grant awarded ( 2009) : The national center for complimentary and alternative Medicine(NCCAM) , a division of the national institution of health(NIH), has awarded two significant grants for research investigating American ginseng’s efficacy against cancer. The grants were based on evidence from recent studies that is now clearly gaining wider acceptance and recognition in western medicine.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. A grant of 6 million dollars has been award by NCCAM to researchers at the university of Chicago medical center for the establishment of a cancer for herbal research on colorectal cancer , which will investigate American ginseng’s (panax quinquefolius) and the little- studied panax notoginseng’s anti-tumor effects, through lab and animal trials. According to a google news alert, three different but closely related projects will be begun immediately: the first will study ginseng’s ability to kill colorectal cancer cells and identify the constituents of ginseng’s ability to kill colorectal cancer cells and identify the constituents of ginseng that are responsible for the killing; the second project will isolate the ginseng extracts that change gene expression within the cells of cancer tumors, and the third will concentrate on how ginseng manipulates the internal signals that cells use to regulate their growth and death. Breast Caner and ginseng ‘s potential action against it has been the ongoing research interest of DR. Laura murphy at the southern Illinois school of medicine, and she has recently received a grant from NIH through NCAAM-for $ 275000.00 to further investigate how American ginseng can be used as a complimentary treatment to standard chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her earlier work has indicated that American ginseng not only reduces the toxic effects of chemotherapy but also increases résistance to cancer cell growth. Chemotherapy not only kills rapidly growing cancer cells but also other rapidly growing healthy cells, particularly kidney and heart cells as well as cancer fighting white blood cells produced by our bone marrow. Somehow ginseng manages to protect these healthy cells against toxic chemical side effects without also protecting the cancer cells. Her newly funded research will involve inoculating human breast cancer cells into mice. She will also feed American ginseng (or placebo) to  inoculated mice. some will receive extract of whole root ; some will receive extract containing only polysaccharides( shown to be effective against viruses and now marketed in ColdFX) and several groups of mice will be fed only ginsenocides (long regarded as the most important active ingredients of ginseng), both individual ginsenocides and several different potentially interactive combinations. DR. Murphy hopes to further confirm ginseng’s efficacy against breast cancer cells and to learn enough about how ginseng is operating to be able to successfully apply for grants supporting human trials. Dr. Murphy also collaborative research project with Taiwan, looking at whole root extract versus ginsenocides alone or in combination is effective against erectile dysfunction either alone or in combination with Viagra. Again she will be looking at whole root extract versus ginsenocides alone or in combination.