Seung-Joon Oh, In-Kyung Jeong, Young-Seol Kim, Young-Kil Choi, Jeong-Ryung Paeng¹, Jung-Hwan Bae and Hyun-Dae Shin²Department of internal Medicine, College Medicine, Endocrine Research Institute¹. Department of Rehabilitation, College of Oriental M...
Seung-Joon Oh, In-Kyung Jeong, Young-Seol Kim, Young-Kil Choi, Jeong-Ryung Paeng¹, Jung-Hwan Bae and Hyun-Dae Shin²Department of internal Medicine, College Medicine, Endocrine Research Institute¹. Department of Rehabilitation, College of Oriental Medicine², Seoul, korea. Bady Fat Reduction Effects of Red Ginseng Compound Preparation on the Patients with Obesity. Proceedings of International Symposium on East-West Medicine, Seoul. 244-254, 1999.-Obesity can be defined as a metabolic disease due to an increased state of fat tissues caused by an imbalance of calorie intake and use. Recently, in Korea by improvement and westernization of food intake, along with decrease in exercise activities, the prevalence of obesity has increased greatly. Our objectives were to study stability and effects of decrease in body fat by administering red ginseng compound preparation (known to have body fat decreasing effects in laboratory animals) to obesity patients on low calorie diets. Changes in weight and body fat were measured while carrying out calorie-restricted diets on patients for 4 weeks, then administering red ginseng compound preparation for another 4 weeks. The patients were 20 people whose BMI were 25kg/㎡ or over and whose percent body fat was also 30% or over when tested by bioelectrical conductivity. 1. Changes in weight were from 70.04kg(base line) to 67.43kg(after taking red ginseng compound preparation). 2. In similar sense, BMI decreased from 27.12kg/㎡(base line) to 26.56kg/㎡(after dieting), and further to 26.01kg/㎡ (after taking red ginseng compound preparation). The BMI seemed to decrease significantly compared to the baseline after the use of red ginseng compound. 3. Waist hip ratio was changed from 0.8858(base line) to 0.8728, but it was statistically insignificant. 4. The percent body fat was 35,16%(base line), 33.87%(after dieting), and 31.68%(after taking red ginseng compound preparation). 5. Complete blood cell count and blood chemisrty remained unaffected by the administration. 6. In concern to endocrinologic studies, T3 decreased from 118.7 to 98.2ng/dL, and T4 increased from 8.8 to 9.2㎕/ dL. Epinephrine showed a tendency to decreased from 0.27 to 0.25 ng/mL, and norepinephrine increased from 0.39 to 0.44ng/mL. 7. Leptin was not changed. 8. Some patients complained adverse effects; constipation(5 patients, may be due to diet therapy), fatigue (2 patients), pruritus(2 patients), flushing(s patients), dizziness(3 patients) and epigastric discomfort(2 patients). However their symptoms were mild, so medication did not stopped. In conclusion, loss of weight without significant side effects was observed during low calorie diet and red ginseng compound preparation administration. This is thought to be in relation to sympathetic nerve system rather than adrenal gland. Also, further long0term studies should be required, since the observed results were based on short-term changes in weight.