Asian Ginseng May Help Schizophrenia Patients

In a recent study, made by the National Institute of Mental Health, the effects of asian ginseng was tested on patients suffering from schizophrenia. Ginseng was found to relieve the symptoms that are otherwise known for being difficult to treat.

Schizophrenia patients often suffer from hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. In medical language these are called positive symptoms which also have effective medications for them. The negative symptoms include flat affect, lack of pleasure or motivation in everyday life, and an inability to converse meaningfully.

The negative symptoms have been found difficult to treat, however a recently made study shows asian ginseng to decrease the intensity of those symptoms. In the study 42 schizophrenia patients who continued to suffer negative symptoms despite the usual treatment were studied.

The patients were given one of two doses of Panax ginseng or a placebo for eight weeks. Then, patients taking ginseng were switched to placebo and patients on placebo were given ginseng for another eight weeks. Patients continued to take their standard antipsychotic drugs throughout the study. Results showed that patients were 50% less likely to have flat affect when taking the higher, 200-milligram dose of ginseng than when taking placebo.

The scientists say it’s still too soon to tell people to take ginseng for schizophrenia, but larger studies about using Asian ginseng against placebo in schizophrenia patients is welcome. However, the results so far are definitely looking promising. The results were presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

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Asian Ginseng May Help Schizophrenia Patients

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