Evidence for Ginseng Combatting Fatigue

Article by Ann Walker, Photo Credit 희찬 박

Millions of people with or without chronic illness suffer from fatigue. Fatigue is a complex, multidimensional problem with poorly understood causes which can have a severely negative impact on daily life. Many patients with fatigue report the use of herbal remedies and among them ginseng is one of the most widely used because it is believed to improve energy, physical and emotional health, and well-being.

Now a group of nurses from Phoenix Arizona have joined forces with various local women’s groups to look at the evidence (PMID: 29624410). They scoured a range of resources which report the world’s leading research papers, to find studies where volunteers with fatigue had used either American or Chinese ginsengs and recorded their fatigue in a recognised scoring system. They turned up 149 articles but only 10 met their strict criteria.

Of these, while there were very few adverse effects, both species of ginseng offered promising treatment for fatigue, despite the strength of the evidence being modest. Because of ginseng's widespread use, a critical need remains for continued research using stronger methodology – certainly this is needed before ginseng can be adopted as a mainstream, standard treatment for fatigue. As patents cannot be taken out on herbal medicines, commercial funding for natural medicine research continues to be limited and research progress relies on interested academics in universities obtaining scarce funding from charitable organisations.

PMID = PubMed identifier

Ann Walker PhD, FCPP, MNIMH, RNutr
Course Director DHM
Herbal Practitioner