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The following was forwarded to me from a colleague at Cornell, the
comments below are from Richard Darlington
<rbd1@cornell.edu><br>
Bob<br><br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><b>Note by RBD<br><br>
</b>I thought it was very misleading to describe the effect of ginseng as
“small.” The number of people who had two or more colds was reduced from
23% in the control group to 10% in the treatment group, and the average
duration of the colds that did occur was reduced from 11.1 days to 8.7
days. We have (10/23)*(8.7/11.1) = 0.34. Thus it seems that the total
number of days of colds in the treatment group was only about one-third
the number in the control group. And that’s ignoring the fact that on the
days with colds, symptoms in the ginseng group were described as milder
than in the control group. Assuming that difference was fairly large, we
may be talking about an 80% reduction in total
discomfort.</blockquote></blockquote><br><br>
<br>
At 07:47 PM 11/1/2005, myron hardesty wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="Times, Times" size=4>
<b>ovember 1, 2005<br>
</b></font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=6><b>Ginseng May Reduce Number and
Severity of Colds<br>
</font><font face="Times, Times">By NICHOLAS BAKALAR<br>
</b></font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>Ginseng, long recommended as a treatment
for
</font>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/colds/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">
<font face="Times, Times" size=4 color="#000067">colds</a></font>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4> by proponents of herbal medicine, has
gained some support in a controlled scientific experiment. Canadian
researchers tested North American ginseng extract against a placebo and
found that it had a small but significant effect in reducing the number
and intensity of colds.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>The study, published in the Oct. 25
issue of The Canadian Journal of Medicine, tested 323 subjects.
Volunteers were randomly assigned either to a group that took
200-milligram tablets of a commercial product with a known quantity of
North American ginseng extract or to a group that took identical tablets
of rice powder. An independent company randomly assigned the subjects,
and neither the researchers nor the volunteers knew which pills were
given to which participants.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>The subjects were asked to note their
symptoms - runny nose, fever, headache, sore throat and six others - and
to rank them on a scale from 0 (no symptom) to 3 (severe symptom). The
participants also kept logs of their symptoms, and the researchers called
each volunteer once a month in the four-month study to make sure that
they were taking their medicine.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>At the end of two months, the subjects
returned any unused medicine, and they were given a second bottle of
pills. They then returned the unused amounts from those bottles at the
end of the study, which was conducted in 2003-2004.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>Of those in the placebo group, 23
percent reported two or more colds over the winter. Ten percent of the
ginseng group had two or more. When those in the ginseng group did have
colds, their symptoms were milder, based on the 0 to 3 rankings, and they
had one-third fewer days with symptoms than those on the placebo.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>The average duration of each cold was
also lower in the ginseng group, 8.7 days compared with 11.1 days for the
placebo group. On every measure, the people taking the ginseng did better
than those on the placebo.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>CV Technologies, the manufacturers of
the ginseng-based cold treatment in the study, provided financial support
for the study, but had no role in planning its design, collecting data or
making decisions on preparing the manuscript for publication.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>Dr. Tapan Basu, a professor of
nutritional biochemistry at the University of Alberta and the lead author
on the study, emphasized that the results pertained only to the
standardized product in the study, and not to ginseng in general.
"This is not the same as a bottle of ginseng from just
anywhere," Dr. Basu said.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>Dr. Ronald B. Turner, a professor of
</font>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/pediatrics/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">
<font face="Times, Times" size=4 color="#000067">pediatrics</a></font>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4> at the University of Virginia who wrote
an editorial accompanying the paper, warned that the study was only a
first step. "This is an unexpected result," he said, "and
the proper way to deal with it is to see what happens when other people
try to confirm it.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>"It's premature for the public to
take off on this," he said.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>The authors acknowledged that ginseng's
effects in the study, while statistically significant, were still quite
modest. They also pointed out that their experiment, carried out in
</font>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/influenza/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">
<font face="Times, Times" size=4 color="#000067">flu</a></font>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4> season, was not set up to distinguish a
cold from the flu.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times, Times" size=4>Nevertheless, the authors said, the
results with ginseng were slightly better than those reported with common
antiviral drugs. North American ginseng extract, they concluded,
"appears to be an attractive natural prophylactic treatment for
upper respiratory tract infections."<br>
</font>
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