- Hi, I'm Sage.
Welcome back to the Addictive Wellness Channel.
Today we're gonna be talking about the most famous herb
in the world, ginseng.
Not just ginseng, but all its other friends
and family and other herbs that masquerade as ginseng.
And in a minute you'll understand what I mean by that.
There's so many herbs that are compared to ginseng
and described as being ginseng-like
because it's the most famous herb in the world.
So if you say something is like ginseng,
or the ginseng of its region,
people tend to automatically already
have sort of a concept of what you're trying to say.
For example, there's an herb out there
called the Ayurvedic ginseng or the Indian ginseng.
There's an herb called the seven-leaf ginseng.
There's an herb called the Thai ginseng.
None of those are actually ginseng,
but they have ginseng-like properties
and we'll be talking about those in just a minute.
But let's go back to the beginning
to what really is the original ginseng
and this is Panax ginseng.
This is coming from Asia of course, China and Korea
in terms of the exact geography
and there's a couple different varieties.
There is red ginseng, there's white ginseng,
there's wild ginseng and cultivated ginseng.
Now of course wild is the most highly prized.
This is ginseng that has the genetic robustness
to survive out there, deal with predators,
deal with pests, all kinds of bugs,
or even larger animals that might wanna eat it
and it's able to ward them off
and in doing so produces saponins like ginsenosides
that are the active compounds
that we're really after with ginseng.
But, that is really something that's so highly priced
that is hard for normal folks to afford
and so we usually end up seeing cultivated ginseng.
Now white ginseng is white because it's been peeled.
And this is a ginseng that is not so fiery
as other ginsengs.
It's less intense as compared to red ginseng
which you leave the skin on
and then its processed with high heat
that actually turns the skin red.
And you see this for example with North Korean red ginseng
which as you can imagine coming from North Korea,
it's pretty hard to find here in the U.S..
And this is a special kind of red ginseng,
there's actually a secret process that goes into making it
that is not revealed.
It's very closely guarded and this involves processing it
with other young, fiery, very hot herbs,
not hot as in spicy hot,
but hot as in their energy.
And this generally is gonna increase the potency
of the North Korean red ginseng.
It's very intense, very fiery
and most of what is sold elsewhere in the world,
especially in the U.S. is actually fake
because you're not gonna get
a whole lotta North Korean products
here in the U.S. as you can imagine.
So, that is the original real ginseng.
Now there's also another kind of ginseng
that botanically speaking is ginseng
and this is American ginseng.
This was discovered by Europeans in the 1700s,
but of course had in fact been used
by many Native American tribes
for hundreds and hundreds of years.
And Thomas Jefferson in fact was a farmer
of American ginseng.
This is a much more yin, cooling ginseng
than Panax ginseng, the ginseng coming from Asia.
It's a big difference in terms of their effect.
The Asian ginseng, much more fiery, much more intense.
American ginseng, much gentler, much more cooling,
almost has like calming,
what you would call a yin effect to it
and as such it's great for helping
to replenish the body's fluids.
Yin is all about restoring and replenishing.
So those are the two real ginsengs.
That's it.
Anything else that you hear about being called ginseng,
it's not really ginseng.
But it can still have some amazing properties.
So one example, again, we're gonna stay in China
for this next example.
This is called the seven-leaf ginseng
or also known as southern ginseng
or ginseng for a tea price.
Now this is gynostemma.
It's a leafy plant and we've done
another video all about this.
It's a herbaceous vine basically
and so I'm not gonna go too deep into it
because we do have another video all about it,
but you can find it on our channel.
But this is actually one of the greatest adaptogenic herbs
in the entire world.
Great for improving energy production,
but also helping you not be too stressed.
It helps to burn fat, build lean muscle,
and it also helps to regulate blood sugar
and it's just overall one of the healthiest,
balancing, gentle yet very effective herbs that there is
and it can be made into a really delicious tea
and uses the base for so many different tonics.
So that's a great herb.
And the reason it's compared to ginseng
is because it contains compounds called gypenosides
which are very similar to the ginsenosides,
these saponins that you find in ginseng
and so it has a very similar dual directional effect.
It actually has way more saponins in it than ginseng does
in terms of the variety of these different saponins.
So it's an incredible herb to familiarize yourself with
and incorporate and to try out for yourself.
Now, let's go to the other side of the Himalayas
and we're gonna talk about what's known
as the Ayurvedic ginseng or Indian ginseng
and this is ashwagandha.
Ashwagandha is becoming more and more well known
which is fantastic
because it has such a wide array of benefits.
It helps to support healthy thyroid function which is great
because millions and millions of people these days
are dealing with an underactive thyroid,
with hypothyroidism, it's pretty much an epidemic
in the modern world.
And there's a whole variety of things
that can contribute to that.
Again, we have another video on thyroid support
so we won't go too deep off into that rabbit hole,
but, I'll let you guys check out that video.
And then ashwagandha also improves energy,
helps deal with stress,
it's great for hormone support.
So it's working in so many ways
to support different bodily functions.
Then we go over to Thailand.
Here is where we find what they call Thai ginseng.
Again, not a botanical relative
of ginseng technically speaking,
but this is black ginger,
it's actually a part of the ginger family.
And within the ginger family
you also find turmeric interestingly enough,
but this black ginger works in a number of different ways.
It's actually for how not well known it is really outside
of Thailand, there's quite a bit of scientific research
that's been done on it in the areas
of sexual performance enhancement.
In the areas of physical endurance
and muscular strength enhancement.
Really interesting results found there,
both in animal research and in some initial human studies.
So that's very promising.
And actually just a study I was reading the other day
was looking at when they put rats
in a very stressful situation normally they find
that they are not able to learn as well
and that their brains get damaged at a faster rate.
Well they found that when you do this to the rats,
unfortunately it's not really cool to cause rats stress,
I know, and it's kind of questionable
whether or not that should be done,
but let's at least learn from the suffering
of these poor rats.
They found that when the rats were put
in a stressful situation,
they did not experience the kind of cognitive damage
and normally when they're under stress
they don't learn as well.
The memory function is impaired.
This didn't happen when they were using
this dose of black ginger.
So it's really amazing.
And they actually found that the neuronal density increased
in the hippocampus.
So there's some really interesting stuff going on
around black ginger and dealing with stress
because we all have so much stress in our lives
and the sources of stress
in our lives are not going anywhere, right?
Technology is not going anywhere,
our busy schedules are not getting any less busy.
What it comes down to is how we're gonna be able
to adapt to that stress and the black ginger
can possibly play a very interesting role there.
Now, we're gonna go north.
We've gone all the way south, right?
We've gone through India, we've gone down into Thailand,
we're gonna back up in the other direction
and go to Siberia.
Here we find Siberian ginseng.
This is also known as eleuthero
and maybe we'll think because of the name Siberian ginseng
that this is actually indeed ginseng, but it's not.
In the early part of the 1900s
when there was lots of wars going on,
the Russians were really blown away
by the endurance and energy and stamina
of the Chinese soldiers that could just fight
for days on end and they were all powered by ginseng.
And so in the years after that,
the Russians really created an initiative
to find something that would have these adaptogenic
and energy enhancing properties,
but growing on their soil because regular ginseng
doesn't grow in Russia.
They wanted to be able
to have a domestic supply of something
that could give their people,
and especially their soldiers, these benefits.
And what they found was eleuthero.
Has many similar properties to ginseng
and it's actually,
when we do look at Reishi as the most well studied herb
in the world,
but eleuthero is the herb that has had the most money spent
on it in terms of investing in the research.
So there's been a ton of research done
in Russia on eleuthero.
And it improves natural energy production,
it improves endurance, it improves focus,
it's working in so many different ways.
It improves resilience to the elements.
So this is another incredible herb.
And then we go back into China.
We're gonna go back into China
for these last two forms of ginseng
that are not really ginseng.
So this one is called Prince ginseng
and this is coming from southern China
and it's known as the ginseng of the lungs.
It's a lung tonic.
It's a Qi tonic and it's a mild adaptogen.
This is not one of the most mind blowing herbs in the world,
but it is a pretty good lung, herb, and Qi tonic.
And then last but not least,
and I saved a really good one for last.
This is notoginseng, N-O-T-O ginseng all is one word.
And this, again, not a botanical relative of ginseng,
but it is a really powerful herb.
There was a famous herbalist, his name is Li Qi Shen,
he's a renowned herbalist
and he said this is more valuable than gold this herb.
It's all known as the miracle root
for preservation of life.
As names go for herbs,
the miracle root for preservation of life,
I'd say that's a pretty darn powerful name.
This is a very strong blood tonic
and hence it's really good
for especially women to know about
and especially women who are vegan and vegetarian,
not consuming the Heme form of iron
and very susceptible to iron deficiency anemia.
This a great blood tonic herb to know about.
And it's very high in saponins.
We talked about the high saponin levels
that we find in ginseng earlier.
These are the adaptogenic compounds that we find
in these herbs.
Notoginseng is 12% saponins by its constitution.
So it has a similar saponin profile to ginseng,
many very similar saponins,
but a much higher amount of them.
So it might not be really related to ginseng,
but it is an incredible herb in its own right
as are all these other ones that we've discussed.
So, I hope you found this video informative
and I'm curious to know what forms of ginseng
of these have you tried
and what's your experience been with them.
If you've tried some of these forms of ginseng,
leave a comment down below.
I'd love to hear about it.
And if haven't tried any,
but you're thinking of trying one,
if one of these really caught your attention and interest,
leave a comment and let us know about that too.
Thanks so much for joining us today guys,
I really appreciate it
and wish you all a wonderful day.