Currently, injuries to customers due to health functional foods are annually increasing. To evaluate the antigenicity of Korean red ginseng mixture (KRGM), we tested for systemic anaphylactic shock and passive cutaneous anaphylaxis in guinea pigs. Based on a comparison of measured body weights, there were no changes in body weight for the KRGM treatment group compared with the control group. In the ovalbumin treated group, however, there was a statistically significant decrease in body weight. For the active systemic anaphylaxis test, after the induction, there were no symptoms that suggested anaphylactic shock in the control and KRGM treatment group. In the ovalbumin treated group, there were symptoms that suggested severe anaphylaxis, and those symptoms included restlessness, piloerection, tremor, rubbing or licking the nose, sneezing, coughing, hyperpnea, dyspnea, staggering gait, jumping, gasping and writhing, convulsion, side position and Cheyne-stokes respiration. All animals died within thirty minutes in the ovalbumin treated group. For the passive cutaneous anaphylaxis test in guinea pigs sensitized to KRGM, each anti-serum was diluted in a stepwise manner. This was followed by an intravenous injection of a mixture of KRGM and Evans blue. The results of the test showed that all the responses were negative in the control and the low-dose and high-dose administration groups. However, in the ovalbumin treated group, all the responses were positive. Based on the above results, there were no anaphylactic responses for up to 12 times the amount of human intake of KRGM in Hartley Guinea-pigs. The results suggest that KRGM is safe as measured by the systemic and local antigenicity in guinea pigs.
Keywords: Active systemic anaphylaxis; Guinea pig; Korean red ginseng mixture; Passive cutaneous anaphylaxis.