Two-year toxicity and carcinogenicity studies of Panax ginseng in Fischer 344 rats and B6C3F1 mice

Ginseng is one of the most popular herbal supplements on the US market. Numerous reports of adverse effects from products containing ginseng have been filed with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the literature documents a "ginseng abuse syndrome" among regular users. However,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe American journal of Chinese medicine (1979) Vol. 39; no. 4; p. 779
Main Authors Chan, Po-Chuen, Peckham, John C, Malarkey, David E, Kissling, Grace E, Travlos, Gregory S, Fu, Peter P
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Singapore 2011
Subjects
Animals
Carcinogenicity Tests
Female
Humans
Male
Mice
Mice, Inbred Strains
Panax - toxicity
Plant Extracts - toxicity
Rats
Rats, Inbred F344
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Summary:Ginseng is one of the most popular herbal supplements on the US market. Numerous reports of adverse effects from products containing ginseng have been filed with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the literature documents a "ginseng abuse syndrome" among regular users. However, the chronic toxic effects of ginseng are not well characterized. Because of its significant human exposure and the fact that little information on its toxicity is available, Panax ginseng was nominated by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) to assess its carcinogenic potential. In this paper, we reported the results of NTP chronic toxicity and tumorigenicity bioassay. It shows that, under these experimental conditions, Panax ginseng is not toxic or tumorigenic.
ISSN:1793-6853
DOI:10.1142/S0192415X11009184