THE EFFECT OF PANAX GINSENG ON ALLOXAN DIABETES

In Chinese medicine, diabetes mellitus has been treated fairly successfully.Many of their prescriptions employed for the treatment of diabetes contain Panax ginseng as an important constituent.In the literature one can find a number of reports on the hypoglycemic effect of Panax ginseng.In most of these reports the action of Panax ginseng was determined on normal animals in which a transient hyperglycemia had been produced by various means,such as the administration of adrenaline or glucose or ammonium chloride.Thus,it would be of value to investigate the effect of Panax ginseng on diabetic animals. METHOD. Albino rats weighing 150—230 gm.were fed steamed corn bread.The amount of the corn bread and water intake was not limited. Besides, each animal was given about 10 gm.of cabbage daily.Blood was obtained before feeding from the tail and the glucose content was determined by the micro-method of Folin-Wu. Alloxan was injected subcutaneously at a dosage of 200 mg./kg. Panax ginseng C.A.Mey was extracted with 50% ethanol,and the extract was dried and pulverized.The powdered extract was dissolved in distilled water freshly before use, and was given by stomach tube. The dosage in this report is given in terms of the original drug rather than in terms of the extract. FIRST EXPERIMENT.In order to study if Panax ginseng can afford protection against the production of alloxan diabetes,male and female rats were fed Panax ginseng 0.52 gm./kg./day.Three days later alloxan was injected and the Panax ginseng administration was continued for another 2 weeks.The controls were treated in the same manner except that distilled water was given instead of Panax ginseng.The blood glucose levels of the first 7 days following the administration of Panax ginseng or of distilled water and the morbidity and mortality rates of the Ginseng-treated and the control groups were compared,the criterion of morbidity being that the blood glucose rose and maintained above 200 mg.%. In the group of male rats the blood glucose of the Ginseng-treated animals(19 rats)was significantly lower than that of the controls(13 rats)(F=20.98,P=0.01).However,in the group of female rats the blood glucose of the Ginseng-treated animals did not differ significantly from that of the controls.In both sexes neither the morbidity rate nor the mortality rate of the treated animals differed significantly from the control animals. The above result shows that Panax ginseng in a dosage of 0.52g./kg. affords definite protection against the production of alloxan diabetes; however, the protection is of a mild degree, being capable of lowering the blood glucose level but incapable of lowering the morbidity and mortality rates. Furthermore, the protection is manifest only in males. SECOND EXPERIMENT. For the study of the curative effect of Panax ginseng two experiments were conducted.In the first one male rats were alloxanized. Seven days later the experimental animals were treated with Panax ginseng by mouth in dosages of 0.5 and 1.0 g./kg./day for 14 days.Control animals were fed distilled water. In this experiment the blood glucose level of the animals(11 rats)treated with 0.5 g./kg,of Panax ginseng was significantly lower than that of the control group(11 animals)(F=12.681, P<0.01). However, those treated with 1.0 g./kg.of Panax ginseng did not show a significant difference in the blood glucose levels between the two groups. In the other experiment male rats were alloxanized. Either 11—15 days or 32—36 days after alloxanization the animals were given by stomach tube a single dose(0.5 g./kg.) of Panax ginseng and blood was taken for glucose determinations 1/2,1,2,3 and 4 hours following the drug administration. On the previous day control experiment was conducted in a similar fashion except that distilled water was given instead of Panax ginseng. The result of this experiment showed that rats(11 animals)11—15 days after alloxanization presented a definite fall in the blood glucose following the dose of Panax ginseng as compared with the control experiment(F=8.743,P<0.01.),while the rats 32—36 days after alloxanization did not show such a difference between the test and control experiments. The foregoing experiments shows that Panax ginseng possesses a blood sugar lowering effect in alloxan diabetic rats whether tested with a single dose or with daily doses for 14 consecutive days.The curative effect does not seem to be very potent as the drug is without effect in rats alloxanized 32—36 days before the test. No attempt is made to explain the fact that 1.0 g./kg.of the drug did not produce a definite benefitial effect.