Although the LC/MS-MS method has been developed to analyze ginsenosides in ginseng roots, this method has not yet been utilized to quantify ginsenosides in ginseng products. In this paper, an internal standard method by LC/MS-MS was developed to analyze the ginsenosides content in the commercial ginseng products such as the ginseng capsules. We compare the standard addition method and the internal standard methods for the quantification of several ginsenosides (e.g., Rb1, Rb2, Rb3, Rc, Rd, Re, Rg1, and Rg3) in five commercial ginseng capsules. The results showed that the internal standard method is as good as the standard addition method and is a less tedious approach. 1. Introduction Asian ginseng, called Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer [1], is widely available as health food products in the form of powders, capsules, tablets, softgel, teas, or liquid extracts. Chemically, ginseng contains different ginsenosides, which are triterpenoidic saponins, with the general structural formula shown in Figure 1 [2]. They are believed to be the active ingredients responsible for the therapeutic effects of ginseng. Ginsenosides can be classified into 20S-protopanaxadiol-type (PPD) or 20S-protopanaxatriol-type (PPT), as listed in Table 1 [3]. In general, for PPD-type ginsenosides, the R3 group in Figure 1 is hydrogen, whereas in PPT-type ginsenosides, the R3 group is either an OH or O-glycosylated by various sugars. These sugar substituents are usually hexoses (glucose and rhamnose) or pentoses (arabinose and xylose) [4]. Because of the structural complexity and low abundance of these ginsenosides, very selective and sensitive analytical methods are needed to differentiate between various ginsenosides. Table 1: Classification of ginsenosides in terms of their aglycones PPD or PPT. Figure 1: Structure of ginsenosides. On the commercial side, the total sale of ginseng dietary supplements in the United States was US$ 12 million in 2005 [5], with a steady annual growth of 3-4% till 2010 [6], indicating that the ginseng products are widely used. Therefore, it is important to determine the contents of various ginsenosides in commercial ginseng products. It is because different ginsenosides are responsible for various health-promoting effects [7]. These biological effects range from antiaging effect and improvement of mental/physical ability to modulation of the immune system [8]. A number of laboratory studies have observed strong therapeutic effects of ginsenosides against cardiovascular diseases (e.g., Re), diabetes (e.g., Re), obesity (e.g., Rg1 and Rg3), cancer (e.g., Rd,
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