Preface

Panax ginseng C.A.Mey. is an Araliaceae Panax plant. In ancient times, it had some elegant names such as Huang Jing, Di Jing and God Grass. As one of the three treasures (ginseng, mink, and antler) in the Northeast of China, ginseng is considered as expensive and valuable medicine and health care product. It is famous all over the world and is well known as “King of herbs” for young and old.

The earliest records about ginseng were described in“Shen Nong’s Materia Medica”as follows: ginseng could be used to nourish internal organs, stabilize the psyche, prevent being horrified, removal evil influence, bright eyes and benefit wisdom. Longevity would result from long time taken.

The nourishing and health preserving efficacy of ginseng has been highly praised and commended in traditional Chinese and western medicine.

From the consumers’ purchase point of view, there are still many fuzzy concepts need to understand. In order to know and make good use of ginseng, a scripture focused on ginseng is needed.

There are four kinds of ginseng such as “Jilin ginseng” in China , “Korean ginseng” in North Korea , “Japanese ginseng” in Japan, “American ginseng” in Canada and the United States. Wild ginseng grows in the primeval forest at an altitude of 1500 to 2000 meters. As the most famous measure among the Northeast Sambo, ginseng’s application history in our country is over thousand years. Currently, it has become a rare and scarce natural green tonic. In our country, there are three kinds of ginseng. wild ginseng, cultivated ginseng and transplant wild ginseng. Wild ginseng grows in the deep mountain forests. The ginseng produced in Jilin province，named as “Jilin ginseng”，has the best quality among the wild ginseng in different areas. Generally, wild ginseng grew for decades, even hundreds of years. The longer age, the more thick body, the better effect and the higher price. Cultivated ginseng is artificially cultivated by using the wild ginseng seed. Due to different processing methods, ginseng could be produced into different varieties. Wild ginseng grows in the mountain with hard soil environment and is effected greatly by natural environment. All parts of wild ginseng showed specific shapes. Wild ginseng body stretches in a shape similar to the Chinese character “八”, with a proportionality of body, leg and fibrous root. The high class wild ginseng is with tighter skin and deeper grooves. Transplant wild ginseng is a smaller wild ginseng, collected and transplanted in forest for more than 10 years, with a lower quality than wild ginseng.

Since the 1950s, ginseng science has made great progress about ginseng’s cultivation, pharmacology and toxicology, the composition that absorbed into the blood, the action mechanism, the structural modification and the development of innovation drugs. There are some monographs in different research fields, such as “Chinese Ginseng” , “Compilation of Ginseng Research Progress” and “Standard Ginsenosides NMR Spectrum” and other books.

In 2012, ginseng is formally approved as a new resource food in China. Thereby ginseng become a natural pharmaceutical and food resource. And the new coming era of ginseng industry expands the application scope and extends the industrial chain of ginseng.

As a participant in the process of applying the new resource food and pharmaceutical and food resource, I deeply think the responsibility to study the nutritional ingredients and functional factors systematically. At the same time, it could provide scientific reference for the majority of ginseng researchers and consumers by comparing the domestic and foreign ginseng. Another important aim is to uncover the mysteries of ginseng and provide scientific technological support.

In this book, a total of 45 samples were collected from Jilin Province (16 administrative region of counties), Heilongjiang Province, Liaoning Province and Korea. These samples covered 3 years, 4 years and 5 years old ginseng were analyzed about ginsenosides, polysaccharide, sterols, proteins, amino acids, flavonoids (isoflavones), nucleotides, organic acids, vitamins and inorganic elements. As a result, large amounts of scientific data were obtained.

This book is divided into two parts.

Part one is focus on establishing analysis methods of nutritional ingredients and functional factors in ginseng. Part two is about the determination results and analysis of nutritional ingredients and functional factors in ginseng.

Thanks for the great supports of Kangmei Xinkaihe (Jilin) Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Since our limited knowledge, there must be some shortcomings in this book. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Pingya Li

2016 October, Changchun