Immunomodulatory Response Induced by Ginseng

There has been continuing interest in the development of synthetic and natural compounds that modify the immune response particularly for the treatment of AIDS and cancer. During the past fifty years, numerous scientific studies have been published on ginseng (Foster and Chongxi, 1992). Modern human studies have investigated preventive effect of ginseng on several kinds of cancer (Yun et al, 1993,Yun, 1995,Yun and Choi, 1998), its long term immunological effect on HIV patients (Sankang, 1989, Cho et al, 1997), its effect on cell mediated immune functions in healthy volunteers (Scaglione et al, 1990). Similarly non clinical studies on animal model system have studied the chemopreventive action of ginseng on cancer (Kumar, 1993,98) and immunological properties of ginseng (Kim et al, 1990, Tomoda et al, 1993, Yun et al, 1993, Mizuno et al, 1994,Lee et al, 1997, Park et al, 2001,Yoshikawa et al, 2001, Wang et al, 2001). The precise mechanism of action of ginseng, however, not clearly understood. Considering its wide-ranging therapeutic effects, this study is being undertaken to elucidate the general mode of action of ginseng, especially to test our hypothesis that its biological action may be mediated by the immune system.