Ginger: A Root of Ancient Medicine

Beliefnet
by Rick Alan

Looking for a natural substance that can help you with nausea? Well, ginger may be your herb.

Native to southern Asia, ginger is a 2- to 4-foot-long perennial that produces grass-like leaves up to a foot long and almost an inch wide. Although it's called ginger root in the grocery store, it actually consists of the underground stem of the plant, with its bark-like outer covering scraped off.

Ginger has been used as food and medicine for millennia. Chinese medical texts from the fourth century B.C. suggest that ginger is effective in treating nausea, diarrhea, stomachaches, toothaches, bleeding, and rheumatism. Modern science gives some support to at least one of these uses: nausea.

Ginger for Motion Sickness

In the early 1980s, a scientist named D. Mowrey noticed that ginger-filled capsules reduced his nausea during an episode of flu. Inspired by this, he performed the first double-blind study of ginger. The results were positive. On the basis of this and other highly preliminary evidence, Germany approved ginger as a treatment for indigestion and motion sickness.

Subsequent studies have tended to support the use of ginger for motion sickness. For example a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 79 Swedish naval cadets found that one gram of ginger could decrease vomiting and cold sweating (although without significantly decreasing nausea and sensation of vertigo). Benefits were also seen in a double-blind study of 36 individuals given ginger, dimenhydrinate (a standard motion sickness drug), or placebo.

In addition, a double-blind comparative study that followed 1,489 individuals aboard a ship found ginger to be equally effective as various medications (cinnarizine, cinnarizine with domperidone, cyclizine, dimehydrinate with caffeine, meclozine with caffeine, and scopolamine). Another double-blind study found equivalent benefit of ginger at a dose of 500 mg every four hours and dimenhydrinate 100 mg every four hours in a group of 60 passengers aboard a ship. Similar results were also seen in a small double-blind study involving children.

However, a 1984 study funded by NASA found that ginger was not any more effective than placebo. Two other small studies have also failed to find any benefit. The reason for the discrepancy may lie in the type of ginger used, or the severity of the stimulant used to bring on motion sickness.

Ginger for Morning Sickness

Ginger has also shown promise for reducing the nausea associated with pregnancy, known as morning sickness.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 70 pregnant women evaluated the effectiveness of ginger for morning sickness. Participants received either placebo or 250 mg of powdered ginger three times daily for a period of four days. The results showed that ginger significantly reduced nausea and vomiting. No significant side effects occurred.

Benefits were also seen in two double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of 27 women and 26 women, but the latter was poorly designed.

Note: ginger has not been proven safe during pregnancy. Even though ginger has a long history of food use, that does not mean that it is completely safe. Keep in mind that in most foods that contain ginger, the herb has been cooked. The forms of ginger used medicinally might have different properties making them less than completely safe for pregnant women.

Nausea Following Surgery

People often feel nauseated after surgery, due to the after effects of anesthesia. Ginger has shown mixed results in studies designed to determine whether it can help reduce this form of nausea.

A double-blind British study compared the effects of ginger, placebo, and the drug metoclopramide in the treatment of nausea following gynecological surgery. The results in 60 women indicated that both treatments produced similar benefits as compared to placebo.

A similar British study followed 120 women receiving elective laparoscopic gynecological surgery. Whereas nausea and vomiting developed in 41% of the participants given placebo, in the groups treated with ginger or metoclopramide these symptoms developed in only 21% and 27%, respectively.

Benefits were also seen in a double-blind study of 80 people. However, a double-blind study of 108 people undergoing similar surgery found no benefit with ginger as compared to placebo.

Negative results were also seen in another recent study of 120 women.

The bottom line: it is not clear whether ginger is helpful for reducing nausea following surgery. In any case, it is not safe to put anything in your stomach prior to surgery. We do not recommend trying to reduce post- surgical nausea with ginger except on the advice of a physician.

Other Possible Uses of Ginger

Ginger was used traditionally for "rheumatism," a term that is generally taken to mean what we now call osteoarthritis. Although ginger has been advocated as a treatment for osteoarthritis, a small double-blind trial failed to find meaningful evidence that it workd. A larger and more recent double-blind trial has been widely touted as proof that ginger does help osteoarthritis, but, contrary to media reports, the study actually tested a combination of ginger and the much less well-known Asian spice galanga (Alpinia galanga). For this reason, it says little about the effectiveness of ginger alone.

Ginger has been suggested as a treatment for numerous other conditions, including atherosclerosis, migraine headaches, rheumatoid arthritis, high cholesterol, ulcers, depression, and impotence. However, there is no meaningful evidence that it is useful for these conditions.

Dosage

For most purposes, the standard dosage of powdered ginger is one to four grams daily, divided up into two to four doses per day. To prevent motion sickness, it may be best to begin treatment one or two days before the trip and continue it throughout the period of travel.

Safety Issues

Ginger is on the FDA's GRAS (generally recognized as safe) list as a food, and the treatment dosages of ginger are comparable to dietary usages. No significant side effects have been observed.

Like onions and garlic, extracts of ginger inhibit blood coagulation in test tube experiments. This has led to a theoretical concern that ginger should not be combined with drugs such as Coumadin (warfarin), heparin, Plavix (clopidogrel), Ticlid (ticlopidine), Trental (pentoxifylline), or even aspirin. (European studies with actual oral ginger taken alone in normal quantities have not found any significant effect on blood coagulation, but it is still possible that combination treatment could cause problems.)

Safety in pregnant or nursing women, young children, or individuals with severe liver or kidney disease has not been established.