Ginseng Supplements: What's in the Bottle?

Does a dose of ginseng actually contain the concentration of the active ingredient that is stated
on the product label?

The herbal dilemma

Each year consumers spend billions of dollars on herbal supplements meant to improve their
health and well-being. In the United States, however, there is a lack of governmental
manufacturing standards for supplements, including herbal or botanical products, and that has
led to questions about whether or not the package labels accurately reflect the products'
contents. For example, does a dose of a given herbal supplement actually contain the
concentration of the active ingredient that is stated on the product label?

To investigate this question, a group of California researchers recently put ginseng

supplements, taken by many consumers to boost energy, to the test. Their results appeared in
the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Varieties of ginseng

The researchers chose to analyze ginseng products because of their worldwide popularity and
because they can be prepared from a variety of plants, raising the likelihood of
misidentification. Historically, the term ginseng has referred to products made from the dried
roots of various species of the plant genus Panax. There are a number of species of Panax
ginseng, and the active ingredients, ginsenosides, occur in differing levels in each species.
More recently, products made from a second genus of ginseng Siberian ginseng or
Eleutherococcus have also appeared on the market

Testing ginseng supplements

For the purposes of this study, the researchers purchased 25 different ginseng preparations
from a health food store. Fourteen of the preparations were from the genus Panax, nine were
from the genus Eleutherococcus and two were mixtures. The researchers extracted the active
compounds from each supplement and compared them chemically to extractions made from
commercially available standardized samples. Their goal was to determine first if the
preparation contained the genus of ginseng indicated on the label and second to determine the
concentration of active ingredients in each preparation.

They found that all of the products were labeled correctly as to species. However, there was
considerable variation in the concentrations of the active ingredients from product to product.
In liquid products prepared from Panax ginseng, for example, the total ginsenoside
concentration varied from a low of .36 grams per liter to a high of nearly 13 grams per liter. In
other words, the product at the high end had 36 times the concentration of ginesenosides as
the product at the low end.

Not all the ginseng products tested stated a specific concentration of active ingredients on the
package label. Of the 11 that did, however, 5 contained more than the labeled concentration
and 6 contained less. Furthermore, actual concentrations ranged from about 10% to more than
325% of the concentration stated on the package label.

What you see may not be what you get

This study adds to a body of evidence that indicates that American consumers should be wary
about depending on package labels to correctly identify the contents of herbal preparations.
Fortunately, help is on the way for Americans who use these products.

The Food and Drug Administration, the US agency with primary responsibility for overseeing
dietary supplements, including herbal preparations, has stated that it intends to issue
regulations on good manufacturing practices, focusing on those that "ensure the identity,
purity, quality, strength, and composition of dietary supplements."

The U. S. Pharmacopoeia (USP), a well-respected group that has been working with both the
supplement industry and the government to establish standards for dietary supplements, has
also entered the fray, launching a pilot program to assess the quality of ingredients in
products, including herbal supplements. Under this program, manufacturers will be allowed to
place a USP certification mark on products that the group has identified as containing quality
ingredients in the amount designated on the product label.

Until these standards are in place, however, consumers should be aware that they are relying
on the manufacturer to certify that what is on the bottle is actually in the supplement.