Ginsenoside Rg3

Also known as: Rg3, Shenyi capsule (China), ginseng saponin

Wellness

In plain English

Ginsenoside Rg3 is a purified active compound from ginseng. In China it is approved (as the Shenyi capsule) as an add-on to chemotherapy for some cancers, where it is thought to slow tumor blood-vessel growth and support the immune response. Most of the strong data are laboratory and animal studies plus Chinese clinical trials of variable quality; it is not FDA-approved, and evidence for the "wellness/cognitive" uses in compounded nasal sprays is essentially absent.

The science

Rg3 is a protopanaxadiol-type ginsenoside with reported anti-angiogenic, pro-apoptotic, and immunomodulatory activity across many preclinical cancer models (comprehensively reviewed by Yao et al., 2025). In China it is marketed as an adjuvant oncology agent; a clinical study reported improved postoperative survival when Rg3 was added to chemotherapy in non-small-cell lung cancer (Lu et al., 2008), though many such trials are small or methodologically limited. It has poor oral bioavailability. There is no rigorous human evidence supporting its use in nasal-spray "cognitive/wellness" combinations, and it is not FDA-approved.

References

• Lu P et al., Chin J Integr Med 2008 (Rg3 + chemotherapy, NSCLC survival)
• Yao ZW et al., Pharmacol Res 2025 (comprehensive review of Rg3)