Written by Irene Fischer, Markus Horneber, Katja Boehm and the CAM-Cancer Consortium.
Updated July 12, 2010

Ginseng for cancer-related fatigue

Does it work?

Clinical studies

For the assessment of its clinical efficacy for cancer-related fatigue, results from two RCTs are currently available.21,22

Younus et al. published the results of a small, placebo-controlled pilot study of 20 patients (11 on P.ginseng and 9 on placebo), which so far is only available in abstract form.22 The total fatigue level and the average fatigue value over the last 24 hours (assessed with the Brief Fatigue Inventory), significantly improved in the Ginseng arm. Improvement has also been shown in the QLQ-C 30. According to these results P. ginseng seems to improve cancer-related fatigue during chemotherapy and the researchers also note that it was well tolerated.

In another pilot study of 282 patients with a variety of cancer types the efficacy of P.quinquefolius was tested for cancer-related fatigue in three different dosages and compared with a placebo arm.21 The authors reported a noticeable improvement of fatigue and quality of life in patients treated with 1000 mg and 2000 mg of the powdered root. On the “Brief Fatigue Inventory” scores improved after 8 weeks for activity interference and usual fatigue, and on the vitality scale of the quality of life questionnaire (SF-36) patients in the placebo group had a mean score of 7.3 compared to 14.6 in the 1000 mg ginseng group and 10.5 in the 2000 mg group. However, it must be noted that this study was designed as a pilot trial and was not powered to detect differences between the groups. The observed adverse effects caused by P.quinquefolius were altogether of minor nature. A study aimed at confirming these results is currently recruiting patients (NCCTG Trial N07C2, National Cancer Institute). A third RCT was stopped prematurely for methodological reasons.24

Pre-clinical studies

There are suggestions from animal experiments that the ginsenosides Rg1 and Rb1 can lead to an increase of the oxygen-dependent stamina performance.25

Citation Irene Fischer, Markus Horneber, Katja Boehm , CAM-Cancer Consortium. Ginseng (Panax ginseng, P. quinquefolium) [online document]. http://www.cam-cancer.org/CAM-Summaries/Herbal-products/Ginseng-Panax-ginseng-P.-quinquefolium. July 12, 2010.

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