STUDIES ON THE ANTI-FATIGUE EFFECT OF THE SAPONINS OF STEMS AND LEAVES OF PANAX GINSENG(SSLG)

SSLG was orally administered to rats dailyfor 6 successive days at a dosage of 100 mg/kgor 200 mg/kg body weight.Swimming experi-ment was then performed,and showed that theswimming time of the SSLG-treated rats wasmuch longer than that of a control group.Further,SSLG significantly raised the level ofblood lipid in rats both at rest and during swim-ming exercise and inhibited the increase ofblood lactic acid as well as the reduction ofthe liver and rectus femoris muscle(RFM)gly-cogens.SSLG also enhanced the amount ofprotein in the liver and RFM in rats at restand during swimming,and the content of RNAin the tissues at rest.However,for swimmingrats of both dosage groups the amounts of RNAand DNA in the liver and RFM show no signi-ficant difference.In vivo,SSLG showed noeffect on the respiratory quotient(RQ)of RFMof rats at rest,though the RQ of SSLG-treatedrats was lowered after 2 hrs of swimming.Invitro,the drug had no effect on RQ.The ex-periments showed the ability of saponins tofacilitate the release of fatty acid from epidi-dymal adipose tissue in rats.It was inferredthat the raising of blood lipid level by SSLGcould be one linkage in its anti-fatigue mechan-ism.