There are regarding 20 kinds of health functional food ingredients recognized by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety as being able to help immune function, including individually recognized ingredients and notified ingredients. Raw materials such as red ginseng, ginseng, and Sanghwang mushroom extract are representative. In particular, research results related to the immune effects of red ginseng once morest various viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, HIV/AIDS), and herpes are being continuously published. Professor Jo Jae-yeol of the Department of Genetic Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University said, “Red ginseng activates macrophages in the body to produce substances that remove infiltrating viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells. It protects our body from external virus infection.”
Red ginseng is also effective in preventing viral respiratory diseases. A research team led by Professor Sang-Moo Kang at Georgia State University in the U.S. found that red ginseng exhibits antiviral effects by increasing cell viability, limiting viral replication, and regulating the secretion of multiple immune cells and cytokines that metastasize to the lungs during respiratory syncytial virus infection. found out The research team analyzed immune cell changes by dividing the group infected with respiratory syncytial virus and prophylactically administered red ginseng one day before infection with respiratory syncytial virus. The number of viruses was regarding 45% lower than that of the treated group.
In addition, red ginseng was effective in delaying the CD4+T decrease in immune cells in AIDS patients. Young-geol Cho, a research team at Ulsan University of Medicine Asan Hospital, observed changes in the decrease in the number of CD4+ T cells in immune cells for 96 months in AIDS patients.
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