Why the study?
Does Panax ginseng extract improve impaired vasorelaxation in rats with induced diabetes?
Does Panax ginseng extract improve impaired vasorelaxation in rats with induced diabetes?
Panax ginseng extracts improve diabetes-induced vascular dysfunction in rats, potentially by altering lipid metabolism and downregulating atherosclerosis-related genes.
Should not yet change practice; hypothesis-generating for ginseng in diabetic vascular disease and requires human trials.
The king of herbs, Panax ginseng, has been used widely as a therapeutic agent vis-à-vis its active pharmacological and physiological effects. Based on Chinese pharmacopeia Ben Cao Gang Mu and various pieces of literature, Panax ginseng was believed to exert active vascular protective effects through its antiobesity and anti-inflammation properties. We investigated the vascular protective effects of ginseng by administrating ginseng extracts to rats after the induction of diabetes. We found that Panax ginseng can restore diabetes-induced impaired vasorelaxation and can reduce serum triglyceride but not cholesterol level in the diabetic rats. The ginseng extracts also suppressed the expression of atherosclerosis-related genes and altered the expression of lipid-related genes. The results provide evidence that Panax ginseng improves vascular dysfunction induced by diabetes and the protective effects may possibly be due to the downregulation of atherosclerosis-related genes and altered lipid metabolism, which help to restore normal endothelium functions.
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Chan et al. (2013) studied this question.
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