Korean Red Ginseng Treats Cardiovascular Diseases – What Say the Research Reports?

According to the recent study reports, the traditional medicinal herb Panax Ginseng, famously known as Korean Red Ginseng, has shown significant improvements in healing inflammation, reducing platelet adhesion, regularizing blood circulation, stabilizing blood pressure, lowering bad cholesterol level, controlling diabetics, and ameliorating cardiac function. Therefore, this article aims to discuss on the "all healing" benefits of this adaptogenic herb Ginseng in cadiovascular diseases, and moreover, this natural complementary treatment has no major side effects.

Ginsenosides – The Main Substance of Ginseng

Possibly, the most active constituent in ginseng with several therapeutic benefits is ginsenosides which is reported to have 40 different components. Korean Red Ginseng, which stands apart from its other types in its “all healing benefits”, is derived from special formulation of ginseng and composed of an unusual saponin profile containing ginsenosides Ra₁, Ra₂, Ra₃, Rf₂, Rg₄, Rg₅, Rg₆, Rk₁, Rs₁, and Rs₂. These components of ginsenosides obtained from deglycosylation and stem transformation of naturally generated ginsenosides [3] have shown better medicinal function than ginsenosides components found in other types of ginseng such as Siberian ginseng, American ginseng etc.

How Does Korean Red Ginseng Aid in Treating CVDs?

1. Regularizes blood circulation and improves antioxidant

Ginsenosides enhances the coronary blood circulaton and also increases antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase, which reduce the possibilities of heart failure (myocardial damage), thereby cardiac ischemia. Moreover, ginsenosides increases 6-keto-prostaglandin F1α and decreases free radical attacks, thus retards myocardial injury. Red ginseng stimulates nitric oxide through ginsenoside-Rb₁ and thus prevents reactive oxygen species production, ultimately blocking endothelial dysfunction. Another component of ginseng, ginsenoside Re contains strong anti-oxidative properties which protect cardiomyocytes against oxidation preventing free radicals from attacking.

2. Regularizes Blood Pressure

Korean Red Ginseng improves low blood pressure condition taking it to the normal level and vice versa. Another component of ginsenoside, Rg₃ improves vascular dysfunction. In addition, red ginseng reproves arterial stiffness in hypertensive conditions and improves blood circulation through vascular dilation, ameliorating vasomotor function.

3. Improves vascular function

The main bioactive component of red ginseng, ginsenosides can improve vascular function. Ginsenoside Rb₁ protects umbilical vein endothelial cells in human and ginsenoside Re ameliorates potassium channels’ activation in vascular smooth muscle cells. Ginsenosides found in panax ginseng help to protect vascular endothelial cells through the signaling pathways, regulating blood vessel tone by producing and releasing nitric oxide in the endothelium. Ginsenoside Rb₁ is one of such types which increases nitric oxide production in human aortic endothelial cells and regularizes vascular function.

4. Ameliorates cardiac function

Korean Red Ginseng helps in restoring regularized cardiac function even after dysfunctionality of myocardial tissue, which are involuntary, striated muscles found in the walls of the heart. It safeguards the heart from cardiotoxicity, myocardial infarction, and cardiac hypertrophy. Ginsenoside Rg₁ contains anti-oxidative effects that guard cardiomyocytes from oxidative injury boosting calcium modulation, and also decreases left ventricular hypertrophy. Panax ginseng modulates capase-3 and Bcl -2 in cases of ischemia and reperfusion and thus inhibits apoptosis in cardiomyocytes. Compund K found in Ginseng strengthens cardiac protection by increasing nitric oxide production through Akt/phosphoinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) pathway.

5. Improves Lipid Profile

People who suffer from cardiac ischemia undergo less coronary flow. A regular intake of red ginseng root extract can increase the coronary flow in them naturally. Ginseng diet also has a good impact in the overall blood circulation in the human body because of its anticoagulant activity. It reduces platelet aggregation in diets with higher cholesterol level.

6. Inhibits platelet aggregation

Several researches have depicted on the effectiveness of panax ginseng in preventing platelet aggregation, which is in simple terms clumping together of platelets in the blood. Korean Red Ginseng heals arterial thrombosis by restoring the blood flow and repairs cardiovascular impairment. Dihydroginsenoside Rg₃ impedes platelet aggregation through downstream signaling, such as extracellular signal-regulated kinase 2 and cyclic AMP. Ginsenosides components, which exist in ginseng root in major proportion, restrain the access of leukocytes to the vascular wall and the release of various cytokines.

What Causes CVD?

In case you want to know more on CVD, read through this section to learn about what causes this disease. Cardiovascular risk factors arise due to cigarette smoking, high blood cholesterol, increased low-density lippoprotein, high blood pressure, diabetics, obesity etc and turns out to be lethal in serious conditions. One of the most core symptoms observed in any type of CVD is the inflammation or endothelial injury of blood vessels that suspends the regular blood flow in the required areas of human body, creating blood clots sometimes. Such inflammation is the result of increasing growth of cytokines, interleukins, and free radicals. Medications, lifestyle changes, surgical procedures such as percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass grafting, and cardiac rehabilitation in spite of being conventional modes of treating CVD involve side effects.

On the contrary, red ginseng extract is a herbal nutritional supplement, regular consumption of which may give healthy cardiac function.

A Few Statistics on CVD

The research statistics depict that there has been a growth rate of 55% in the occurrence of CVD in the population aging, whereas a worth-mentioning decrease in the population growth has been found that is only 25%. Another research showcases, “Globally, the number of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases increased by 41% between 1990 and 2013, climbing from 12.3 million deaths to 17.3 million deaths.”

Conclusion

It's been centuries that ginseng has been used in Asian society to treat various health disorders. But in the recent times, a rapid growth rate in ginseng usage has been noticed on a global scale. It has become the part of regular diet for many. Consuming herbal ginseng supplements not only reduce the chances of cardiovascular risk factors but also boosts immunity strength and stamina. The above-mentioned studies have detailed enough evidences of ginseng efficacy on CVDs. Therefore, Korean Red Ginseng can be a good complementary therapy in treating heart problems.

References:

https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/conditions/cardiovascular-disease
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Support/What-is-Cardiovascular-Disease_UCM_301852_Article.jsp#.WfU6D1uCzIU
http://www.ginsengres.com/article/S1226-8453(17)30317-2/pdf