Red ginseng prevents flu, pneumonia: research

Studies have shown that South Korea's hongsam (red ginseng) is effective in preventing respiratory diseases such as the flu and pneumonia.

The Korean Society of Ginseng on Tuesday said a research team led by professor Lee Dong-kwon of Sungkyunkwan University's College of Pharmacy recently announced this as part of a study. The team administered 100 mg/kg of hongsam to experimental mice infected with pneumococcal bacteria and the same dosage of physiological saline to another group and observed both sets for 15 days. Only half of the rats that were fed the saline survived, whereas all of those receiving the red ginseng did so.

In addition, the hongsam group showed significantly lower levels of inflammatory cytokine and pneumococcal counts than the control group.

In the US, a research team led by professor Kang Sang-moo at Georgia State University's Institute for Biomedical Sciences conducted experiments by injecting mice with the H1N1 influenza virus to compare survival rates. The findings were that the mice survival rate was 100% when a vaccine and hongsam were jointly administered but only 60% if the vaccine was given alone, with just 40% of normal mice surviving. This was further evidence of the higher efficiency of joint administration of a vaccination and red ginseng.

"The results of antiviral research on the use of red ginseng for treating 10 diseases such as the flu and AIDS have been published," said Cho Jae-youl, a professor of integrative biotechnology at Sungkyunkwan. "Red ginseng regulates the activity of human immune cells such as innate immune cells and shows antiviral and pneumococcal effects."

A range of studies on the effectiveness of red ginseng to treat cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes are being conducted both at home and abroad. 

Write to Jung-Eun Kim at likesmile@hankyung.com