Passage Three

The popular dietary supplement ginseng is purported to improve one’s mood. The popular dietary supplement ginseng is purported to improve one’s mood and all-around vigor, but a new study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggests that ginseng has little of any effect on psychological health. The study, conducted by researchers at Oregon State University and Wayne State University, is one of the most extensive peer-reviewed studies of ginseng ever conducted.

“Ginseng is being marketed to relatively healthy young people as a way to feel even better—a kind of yuppie supplement,” said Bradley J. Cardinal, an associate professor in the College of Health and Human Performance at Oregon State. “We found it had no real effect on mood at all. It certainly did not live up to some of its over-enthusiastic marketing claims.” Among the claims, the authors say, were that ginseng enhances mood, leads to positive well-being, and generally makes you feel better. Marketing ploys used to push ginseng promoted its use by astronauts and professional athletes, and claimed it did everything from easing childbirth to working as an aphrodisiac.

The study by Cardinal and Hermann J. Engels of Wayne State University focused only on the alleged psychological properties of ginseng. The researchers gave a regular, 200-mg daily dose of ginseng to one group of volunteers for eight weeks. A second group received a double dose of 400-mg daily; the third group received a sugar pill. None of the individuals knew what they were taking. At the end of the eight-week period, the researchers measured the effects of the supplements on the volunteers’ “total mood disturbance” using a 65-question “Profile of Mood States” inventory. To eliminate bias, the researchers evaluated the tests without initially knowing which subjects were taking ginseng and which were taking placebos. They compared the results with a baseline survey of the volunteers taken just prior to the study. They found no significant difference among the three groups.

“What these findings on psychological effect do is to extend earlier research from our lab that examined physiological outcomes of ginseng,” said Wayne State University’s Engels. “Our previous research found, using a controlled physical exercise stress test, that ginseng had no effects when given to normal, healthy adults.”