TABLE 1.

Ginsenosides significantly improve obesity and its complications by regulating gut microbiota.

Diseases	Compounds/extracts	Subject	Gender	Period	Main gut microbiota analysis	Mechanism	References
Obesity	Ginsenoside Rb1	Mice	Both Genders	4 weeks	The abundance of Clostridia and Lactococcus lactis increased	Enhance the production of acetate and butyrate contents of all SCFA	Hasebe et al. (2016)
Obesity	Ginsenoside Rb1	Mice	Male	8 weeks	The relative abundance of Firmicutes phylum increased and the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes phylum improved	Reduce the overall diversity of the gut microbiota in feces and change the microbial composition	Bai et al. (2021)
Obesity	Panax notoginseng saponins	Mice	Male	7 Weeks	The abundance of Akkermansia muciniphila and Parabacteroides distasonis increased	Activate leptin AMPK/STAT3 signaling pathway to promote BAT thermogenesis and beige adipocyte reconstruction	Xu et al. (2020b)
Obesity induced colitis	Ginsenoside Rk3	Mice	Male	8 weeks	The relative abundance of Actinomycetes and Clostridiathat, Parabacteroides, Lactobacillus, Butyricicoccus and Clostridium increased, while that of Akkermansia, Acetobacter, Enterobacter, and Anaerotruncus decreased	Inhibit TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway, and improve the metabolic imbalance of intestinal flora, as well as significantly reduce the ratio of Firmicum/Bacteroide and relieve the inflammatory cascade	Chen et al. (2021)
Diabetes	Ginsenoside T19	Mice	Male	6 weeks	The value of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes decreased and the relative abundance of the Lachnospiraceae family remarkably raised	Lower the levels of blood glucose and lipid, alleviate insulin resistance via AMPK and PI3K Pathways	Xu et al. (2020a)
Diabetes	Ginsenoside Rg5	Mice	Male	4 weeks	The abundance of Firmicutes and Verrucomicrobia decreased at the phylum level, and the abundance of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria increased	Repair intestinal barrier function and relieve metabolic endotoxemia-related inflammatory pathways	Wei et al. (2020)
Diabetes	Ginsenoside Rb1+ Ginseng polysaccharides (GP)	Rats	Male	30 days	The abundance of β-D-glucosidase producing probiotics Bifidobacteria spp. Bacteroides spp. and Lactobacillus spp. showed no significant change	Regulate intestinal flora, improve fecal β - D-glucosidase activity, and improve the conversion rate of ginsenoside Rb1 to CK	Li et al. (2018a)
NAFLD	Ginsenoside Rg1 + Rb1 + Rg3	Human	Both Genders	4 weeks	The abundance of Lactobacillus significantly increased	Improve liver enzymes (alanine aminotransferase) and fatigue score by modulating gut microbiota	Hong et al. (2020)
NAFLD	Ginsenoside extract	Mice	Male	12 weeks	The abundance of Bacteroidetes significantly increased and the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes down-regulated	Enhance the gut barrier function, restore the energy balance, and alleviate metabolic inflammation by gut microbiota regulation	Liang et al. (2021)

Note: Human studies in the table were randomized controlled clinical trials.