title: Adaptogenic herb ginseng (Panax) as medical food: Status quo and future prospects.
abstract: Ginseng, an herbaceous plant, belonging to the family Araliaceae is a traditional medicinal herb. Also, it is emerging as a functional food and potent adjunct medicine. Saponin ginsenosides (protopanaxadiol and protopanaxatriol) are the signature phytochemicals of this plant. With the surfacing of scientific validations, ginseng is gaining unprecedented attention from consumers as well as researchers. As a number of drug-herb interaction-caused health issues have emerged, the medicinal relevance of this plant has been critically assessed here. In this regard, the recent publications on health benefits of ginseng have been extracted from NCBI and ScienceDirect database. The claimed antioxidant, anti-inflammation, anti-fatigue, antidiabetic, antitumor, immunomodulation, anti-obesity, cardioprotective, antimicrobial, neuroprotective and aphrodisiac properties have been analyzed. This review presents a fair assessment and insights on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) potential of this herb.
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Research Center, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile, San Diego, CA 92182, USA. Electronic address: seemabiotech83@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Seema
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Swabi Anbar, 23430, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Electronic address: mashaljcs@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Abdur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rauf
mesh_terms: D000529:Complementary Therapies; D055951:Functional Food; D036145:Ginsenosides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D005894:Panax / Q000737:chemistry*; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D036145:Ginsenosides
keywords: Anti-inflammation; Anticancer; Antidiabetic; Antioxidant; Ginseng; Neuroprotective