## 4 Discussion
### Inflammation Markers of Muscle Damage  
Acute intense or eccentric exercise changes markers of muscle damage and inflammation resulted in inducing delayed-onset muscle soreness [19]. Various nutritional approaches have been introduced to attenuate the inflammation process or facilitate the recovery from muscle damages [47]. In this study, blood markers, including IL-6, myoglobin, cortisol, and TAC were not significantly different between the WGE and the placebo conditions following acute eccentric exercise. However, a favoring trend has been found that the serum IL-6 level significantly increased only in the placebo condition during 2 h recovery, whereas this value did not significantly change in the WGE condition. Similar results have been reported in previous studies [48; 49; 50]. [PERSON] et al. reported that 7 days of Panax ginseng supplementation (20 g/d) prior to the uphill treadmill running (45 min at 10 km/h speed with a 15 degree) attenuated the increment of IL-6 level during 2 h and 3 h recovery period in young adults [48]. Another study also demonstrated that administrations of ginseng-based steroid Rg1 (5 mg) one night and one hour before 60-min cycling exercise suppressed the exercise-induced expression of IL-10 mRNA in quadriceps muscle [49]. Recently, [PERSON] et al. reported that the level of serum IL-6 declined after downhill running in the ginseng group whereas the placebo group increased up to 4 h [27]. However, their findings revered 24 h after downhill running where the placebo group demonstrated a rapid return to baseline compared to the ginseng group. Interestingly, the placebo condition in this study also returned the IL-6 level to near baseline 24 h after eccentric exercise. A question arises based on the present and the previous studies whether the benefits of acute ginseng administration only valid during the first 2-4 h after eccentric exercise. However, this question should be approached carefully in the future study because the present and the previous data demonstrated inconsistent patterns from 24 h to 96 h after acute eccentric exercise. Although our study revealed a favoring trend at the first 2 h after the exercise, the benefit is not guaranteed until future research with a large sample size is conducted to clarify the anti-inflammation process in response to acute eccentric exercise. Myoglobin is a muscle protein that is released from the damaged muscle following high intense eccentric exercise [19]. In the present study, the myoglobin level increased two hours after acute eccentric exercise, but no difference was found between the conditions. [PERSON] et al. reported 12 weeks of Panax ginseng supplementation did not change inflammation adaptation, including muscle damage, oxidative, and inflammatory biomarkers to eccentric exercise training [51]. [PERSON] et al. applied 5 bouts of 8 min downhill running at 80% of maximal heart rate (HRmax) with lowered -10\({}^{\circ}\) and participants received Panax notoginseng capsule (4000 mg/day) or placebo for 5 times (at 1 h prior to exercise and the following four days) in a crossover design. The author reported that myoglobin significantly increased after downhill running, but no significant differences were observed between conditions that support our result [27]. Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone that regulates energy metabolism during exercise [52]. It also interacts with inflammatory markers and nutritional supplementation,such as carbohydrates, and has been shown to lower cortisol levels after intense exercise [53]. In the present study, there were no difference in serum cortisol level between the WGE and placebo conditions. [PERSON] et al. reported that a single bout of ginseng root extract (20 g) administered following a standardized exercise did not make a significant difference in cortisol levels [54]. Thus, it is confirmed that cortisol response following eccentric exercise was not influenced by ginseng supplement.