Effect of Fermented Red Ginseng Concentrate Intake on Stool Characteristic, Biochemical Parameters, and Gut Microbiota in Elderly Korean Women

Abstract

Fermented red ginseng (FRG) has been used as a general stimulant and herbal medicine for health promotion in Asia for thousands of years. Few studies have investigated the effects of FRG containing prebiotics on the gut microbiota. Here, 29 Korean women aged ≥ 50 years were administered FRG for three weeks to determine its effect on stool characteristics, biochemical parameters, and gut microbiome. Gut microbial DNA was subjected to 16S rRNA V3-V4 region sequencing to assess microbial distribution in different stages. Additionally, the stool consistency, frequency of bowel movements, and biochemical parameters of blood were evaluated. We found that FRG intake improved stool consistency and increased the frequency of bowel movements compared to before intake. Biochemical parameters such as glucose, triglyceride, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, creatinine, alkaline phosphatase, and lactate dehydrogenase decreased and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol increased with FRG intake. Gut microbiome analysis revealed 20 specific bacteria after three weeks of FRG intake. Additionally, 16 pathways correlated with the 20 specific bacteria were enhanced after red ginseng intake. In conclusion, FRG promoted health in elderly women by lowering blood glucose levels and improving bowel movement frequency. The increase in bacteria observed with FRG ingestion supports these findings.

Keywords: bowel movements; elderly individual; fermented red ginseng concentrate; glucose; gut microbiota.

Figure 1

Study design.

Figure 2

Changes in bowel movements in participants. A line graph showing the change in the (A) stool consistency and (B) participants’ frequency of bowel movements at each time point. (A) Stool consistency was indicated using BSFS. (B) Participants’ frequency of bowel movements were presented at 1 week. The points of the graph represent the mean, the connecting line represents the slope, and the bar represents the standard error of the mean (SEM). SEM was obtained by taking standard deviation (SD) and dividing by the square root of the sample size. For statistics, paired t-test was performed.

Figure 3

Observation of significantly enriched bacteria at each time point following FRG intake. (A) Relative abundance by time points of 20 specific strains observed in TP2. (B) Twenty specific strains significantly observed in TP2 (green) compared to TP1 (red) and TP3 (blue).

Figure 4

Heatmap clustering showing correlations with variables in TP2 of all subjects. The displayed heatmap clustering at the taxonomy level is genus and species. The distance measurement was performed with Pearson, and the clustering algorithm was performed with Average. The clustering algorithm refers to measuring the distance between each cluster, and when measuring the distance between two clusters, the average connection was performed by calculating the average by calculating the distance between all points in the cluster. Abbreviations: Con, stool consistency; Fre, frequency of bowel movements; glu, glucose; chol, cholesterol; tg, triglycerides; ldl, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol; hdl, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. * p > 0.05. ** p > 0.01.

Figure 5

Significantly observed pathways in TP2. Based on the KEGG database, we used PICRUSt to predict the module and MinPath to predict the path. * p > 0.05. ** p > 0.01. *** p > 0.005.

Figure 6

Heatmap clustering showing correlation analysis between significantly observed pathways and 20 bacteria enriched only in TP2. Spearman correlation analysis between predictive pathways and specific bacteria of interest. * p > 0.05. ** p > 0.01. *** p > 0.005.