Ginseng As A Treatment For Prostate Cancer

Many people today are interested in the use of herbs such as ginseng in the treatment of prostate cancer.

Before we describe the scientific literature on the use of Ginseng for the treatment of  prostate cancer, here is a brief description of the different types of ginseng.

Ginseng is a herbal remedy that has been used in Asia as a medicinal remedy for a long time. It's commonly used as a herbal preparation in traditional Chinese medicine.

There are many types of ginseng freely available on the market today. However, there are really only 2 types of real ginseng:

1. Asian Ginseng              ( Panax Ginseng): and

2. North American Ginseng ( Panax Quinquefolius).

Both types of ginseng differ in their chemical composition. This different chemical composition appears to give each type of ginseng different biological properties.

How To Research The Medical Literature And Find Abstracts And Free Full Text Articles On Ginseng As A Treatment For Prostate Cancer

To research the scientific literature and find medical articles written about the use of ginseng for the treatment of prostate cancer, you first need to go the online medical database of the National Library Of Medicine.

This site is called Pub Med and can be found at www.pubmed.com

The home page has a search box. In the search box  type in --  Ginseng AND prostate cancer. Then click search. Notice that the search won't wok if you type in ginseng as a treatment for prostate cancer.

As of August, 2006 a total of 6 medical articles have been written which turned up in our search. You can read the abstracts for free online. In addition, one of the articles is available as a free full text article on the subject of ginseng as a treatment for prostate cancer.  

To tell if a  free full text article is available, look to see if there are green lines in the file box to the left of the article title.

If there are only black lines then that means that only the abstract is available. This still can provide some valuable information on our subject of ginseng in the treatment of prostate cancer. You can read the abstract and, if you decide that you want to read the full text of the article for free, then make a note of the journal title and the volume.

You can then go the closest medical library, find the actual medical journal, and read the full text of the article for free.