Red ginseng for treating erectile dysfunction: a systematic review

Jang DJ, et al.

Published in British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology

Methodology

Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials; searches of 20 electronic databases plus hand-searching, no language restrictions; methodological quality assessed with the Jadad score; pooled risk ratios.

Key Findings

Searches of 20 electronic databases without language restriction identified 7 randomised trials of Korean red ginseng for erectile dysfunction, 6 of which were placebo-controlled. Meta-analysis of those 6 trials (n = 349) found a significant benefit, risk ratio 2.40 (95% CI 1.65 to 3.51, p < 0.00001) with low heterogeneity (I2 = 22%). A subgroup analysis in psychogenic erectile dysfunction (n = 135) also favoured red ginseng, risk ratio 2.05 (95% CI 1.33 to 3.16, p = 0.001, I2 = 0%).

Conclusions

These RCTs provide suggestive evidence for the effectiveness of red ginseng in erectile dysfunction, but methodological quality was too low for definitive conclusions.

Limitations

The included trials were few, small and of low average methodological quality by Jadad score, so the authors state the evidence is suggestive rather than definitive and more rigorous trials are needed.