Red American Ginseng and Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed form of cancer among women. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in nearly all developed countries, showing an increased incidence over the last decades, and the expected number of new U.S. patients in 2010 would be 209,060, and the death number will be 40,230 1. The clinical management of breast cancer invariably involves diverse conventional modalities, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation 2. The complex characteristics of breast cancer may also require some alternative management to improve the therapeutic efficacy of conventional treatment and the quality of life for cancer patients 3. American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) is a commonly used herb in the United States which belongs to the genus Panax L. in family Araliaceae 4. Panax is a small genus, and nearly all species in this genus are important herbal medicines, especially Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer) 5. Since Asian ginseng has been used as herbal medicine for a long history in oriental countries, many studies have been conducted on its constituents and its pharmacological effects 6. Asian ginseng has many reported health benefits including anticancer activities 7-9. In the 1990s, a case-control study on over a thousand Korean subjects showed that long-term ginseng consumption was associated with a decreased risk for many different cancers compared with those who did not consume ginseng 10,11. In contrast to many studies on Asian ginseng’s anticancer effects, investigation of American ginseng is limited 7, and its mechanisms of action are largely unknown. American ginseng extracts were found to inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells12. We previously investigated the effects of several herbal extracts on reducing chemotherapeutic side effects and found that American ginseng can attenuate cisplatin-induced nausea and vomiting in a rat model, while not affecting its anticancer properties in human cancer cells13. In addition, the extract from American ginseng enhanced the antiproliferation effect of cisplatin on human breast cancer cells, suggesting that it possesses its own anticancer activity13. In Asia, ginseng root is air-dried into white ginseng or steamed at 100 °C to give red ginseng. It is believed that red ginseng is more pharmacologically effective than white ginseng 14. The differences in the biological effects of white and red Asian ginseng are attributed to the significant changes in ginsenosides from the steaming treatment 15. In this study, we treated American ginseng root at various temperatures and heating times. After heat-processing, the root of American ginseng, like Asian ginseng, changes from white to red; steamed P. quinquefolius root is therefore referred to as red American ginseng.