Anti-obesity Effect of Carbon Dioxide Supercritical Fluid Extracts of Panax Ginseng C. A. Meyer

The root of Korean ginseng, Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer, has been known worldwide as a panacea for many centuries. Contradictory weight gain and loss effects in Korean ginseng led to the adoption of supercritical carbon dioxide extraction to assure the quality of food-grade anti-obesity ginseng products. Among different extraction conditions of CO2 pressure (200 and 300 bars) and temperature (40, 50, and 60°C), the highest extraction yield of 0.66% was obtained with 300 bars at 40°C. To test anti-obesity effect, each supercritical fluid extract (SFE) was supplemented to the high-fat diet of male obese-prone C57BL/6J strain mice. All carbon dioxide SFEs of ginseng showed significant weight-loss effects in the tested mice. The average weights of normal and high fat diet mice were 28.7±2.0 and 35.0±1.6 g, respectively, after 10 weeks. Average weights of mice on SFE-supplemented high fat diets were between 24.5±1.4 and 25.9±1.3 g. SFEs obtained at 50°C, and at both 200 and 300 bars, showed the most profound anti-obesity effect. Both SFEs showed ~15 and ~30% weight loss for the normal and high-fat diet mice, respectively. The major component of the SFE was analyzed as polyacetylene compounds, and panaxydol and panaxynol were identified as major polyacetylene compounds. However, the anti-obesity effect of the ginseng SFEs was not correlated with contents of these two polyacetylene compounds in SFEs. No side-effects of ginseng SFEs were observed, and the anti-obesity effect was reversible.