Richters HerbLetter
Date: 95/06/05
Contents
1. Ginseng on the Up and Up; McMaster Team Finds Chemical in Root That Can Alleviate ‘Erectile Dysfunction’
1. Ginseng on the Up and Up; McMaster Team Finds Chemical in Root That Can Alleviate ‘Erectile Dysfunction’
By Alan Edmonds
TORONTO, June 4, Toronto Star -- Four undergraduate students at Hamilton’s McMaster University, three of them women, have helped prove scientifically that one of the most stubbornly durable "myths" of ancient medicine is probably true: ginseng is good for men’s sex life.
Under chemistry professor Russell Bell, the students conducted a two- stage experiment that showed that the type of steroid compound called saponin in ginseng (Panax) is a vaso-dilator. That is, it opens up the veins and arteries and improves blood flow. And a large number of the doctors now specializing in impotence believe poor blood supply to the penis or pelvic region is a common cause of what these new specialists prefer to call "erectile dysfunction." (One says, "The actual word ‘impotent’ is too negative, so we avoid using it.")
Ginseng may also stimulate the interest of women, since increased blood supply to the pelvic region is associated with sexual arousal. The work at McMaster is particularly relevant because, with the Baby Boom generation aging fast, there are nearly 2 million men between 50 and 60 in Canada. Sex doctors guesstimate that at least 15 per cent and perhaps as many as 60 per cent of them have become partly or totally impotent. Precise statistics will never be available because the macho-man tradition means men rarely admit they can’t get it up any longer.
Dr. Sender Herschorn, who runs one of North America’s busiest impotence clinics at Sunnybrook Health Centre, says women make around half the clinic’s appointments for their men. And one of the major tools in the arsenal of impotence clinic doctors is the penile doppler test, an electronic check of the penile artery by measuring the rate of blood flow to the penis.
The next step in Bell’s research at McMaster is to look for the specific ginseng saponin that is the best vaso-dilator. If found, and if Western "scientific" pharmacology synthesizes it into a pill, it could be an anti-impotence medication, perhaps even a sex stimulant, that would outsell Prozac. Bell and his students have identified 13 different saponin molecules (ginsenosides) in Panax quiquefolium, the native North American ginseng that has become a $40-million a year export to China from Canada.
Bell is now preparing for a joint experiment with Hong Kong University in an attempt to isolate the saponins that are most effective. "We have succeeded in separating out five groups of saponins," says Dr. Bell. "We know that at least three groups contain vaso-dilators. The next step is to attempt to isolate individual saponin to determine which works best."
Bell stresses that it may not actually be a saponin that dilates the vascular system but some other component of ginseng that is carried with the saponin molecule. And what that does is open up yet another skirmish in the battle between Western "scientific" medical pharmacology and the growing popularity of hand-me-down herbal medicine.
The work at McMaster was begun by David Kwan, a pharmacologist in neurosciences. In a laboratory dish he kept alive a section of a dog’s aorta, the main trunk of the cardio-vascular system that leads to the heart. To it he attached electronics capable of measuring infinitesimal movement. Then he "fed" the living tissue a crude extract of Chinese-grown ginseng (Panax ginseng). The aorta dilated; that is, it became enlarged.
Kwan then asked the chemistry department to do a more detailed breakdown of the ginseng chemical structure to determine just what was causing the enlargement of the artery. With students doing the work as part of their senior thesis projects, Bell used samples from the crop that has partially replaced tobacco as a staple for southern Ontario farms.
Separated into five groups of two, three or four, the samples were also fed to the living tissue of dog aorta. "Three were active vaso-dilators," says Bell. Then, with Brian McCarry, he set about devising ways to use high-performance liquid chromatography to break down the groups farther and identify each individual saponin for testing by Kwan, now on the faculty of Hong Kong University.
"In part, Kwan is invoking sophisticated Western science to test part of his cultural heritage," says Bell. "Traditional Chinese doctors say you need a bit of this and a bit of that and they work together synergistically. Scientific Western pharmacology looks for one thing, one so-called active ingredient. Then we medicate with that one ingredient, or the synthesis of it."
But rummaging around in the medicine cupboard of history, chemists and pharmacologists have found that forms of saponin can be extracted from many other plants. Thus it may "a bit of that" in ginseng that by itself does not dissolve in liquid but which is held in suspension by saponin molecules that do. If this turns out to be the case, the "active ingredient" may prove very elusive. And once it is found, scientists may still not know why or how it works on the cardio-vascular system.
To the Chinese -- and increasingly to Western Naturopaths -- ginseng is a staple of traditional herbal medicine. If the ginseng is wild, fairly old, and resembles a human figure, it costs upwards of $30 a leung (about an ounce). At Yi Kang Yuan Herbs in the heart of Scarborough’s Chinatown one man-shaped root around 20 years old is priced at $1,250. Cultivated ginseng is harvested after only three to seven years. When powdered to make prophylactic tonic, it costs $10 or so for a months’ supply. It’s as a tonic that ginseng is mainly used.
It’s considered one of the most powerful of medicinal herbs because it helps both Yin and Yang conditions. Yin (passive) and Yang (active) represent the Oriental concept of duality in all things. If they’re in balance, you’re healthy. If a patient is "low" -- lacks energy and is "passive" -- Chinese doctors diagnose this as a Yin condition and a dose pf "hot" ginseng is prescribed as a stimulant. If a patient is hyper, that indicates a Yang condition and "cool" ginseng is prescribed to strengthen their Yin. "Hot" ginseng comes from Korea and northern China and is used to improve men’s sex life. Canada’s ginseng, despite Bell’s work, is considered "cool."
[Alan Edwards is a writer and broadcaster based in Toronto.]
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