Your doctor may recommend ginseng if you have just had an illness. If you are elderly, ginseng may shorten the time that it takes you to bounce back from illness or surgery. It may also help you to focus your thoughts. If you are someone who tends to get a lot of colds or sore throats you may find that taking ginseng reduces the number of these conditions. Ginseng may help if you have difficulty concentrating.
Athletes take ginseng to increase both endurance and strength.
In each of these functions, ginseng acts as an adaptogen, which help the body fight against the effects of just about any kind of stress, be it viral, bacterial, emotional, intellectual, or physical. The effects of stress may be as simple as headaches or colds, but they can also be more serious, such as accelerated aging, memory loss, heart disease, cancer, and arthritis. When taking American ginseng, look for standardized products. Standardization is the only way we have of assuring quality in herbal products. Choose white American ginseng, standardized to 0.03 percent ginsenosides, designated as Rb1.