Denton Hoffman, general manager of the Ontario Ginseng Growers’ Association, thinks it’s just a matter of time before there’s a ginseng solution for Type 2 diabetes.
For the past 10 years, the ginseng industry has been supplying Dr. Vladimir Vuksan of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, who is exploring the glucose-lowering effects of ginseng.
Now scientists are beginning to grow ginseng developed with beneficial attributes specific to Type 2 diabetes. “They’re doing micro-propagation,” Hoffman notes, adding that the ginseng industry and the University of Western Ontario in London received funding from the provincial government last year to develop solutions.