Nothing against spinach — folate is great too.
But ginger might just be one of the most underappreciated, underutilized tools in the dietary arsenal in the game as well as one of the cheapest.
I travel nowhere without a hefty hunk of ginger root in my backpack to chew on — in a train station, or a taxi, or a national park — which, as a longstanding practice, has served me well over the years.
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My clinical interest in ginger was re-piqued by my recent return to the Land of Smiles, wherein virtually every Thai street food vendor drowns their dishes in monosodium glutamate (MSG), a common food additive which, while widely considered a powerful flavor enhancer, is also notably toxic to the brain and other organs.
Ginger to the rescue.
Via Journal of Food Biochemistry (emphasis added):
The chronic administration of monosodium glutamate (MSG) as a flavor enhancer has been suggested to produce toxicity, inflammation, and pre-malignant changes in organs. Ginger has protective effects, with potent anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic activity against MSG administration. This study is the first to report that ginger modulated the inflammatory and fibrotic effects of MSG and improved immunological indices reflecting the involvement of inflammatory and fibrotic markers and polysaccharide content in the activation of macrophages. These findings support the further use of ginger as a supplement for food enhancement and as an anti-fibrotic, anti-inflammatory, and therapeutic agent in pharmaceutical therapies against autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and ulcerative colitis, as well as MSG-associated inflammatory diseases.
Aside from tamping down MSG-induced inflammation, ginger may also:
- Facilitate weight loss
- Treat osteoarthritis
- Lower blood sugar levels and limit blood sugar spikes
- Improve digestion
- Reduce Alzheimer’s disease risk
- Reduce cholesterol (although the health risks of high cholesterol are hotly debated by real doctors and scientists and look to have been exaggerated greatly by corrupted scientists on the pharmaceutical industry payroll to sell drugs, which I have covered before for PJ Media)
It appears, in fact, that the ginger constituents’ simplest mechanism of action that makes them useful for treating many or all of the above conditions is reducing inflammation and regulating the immune response.
Via Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects (emphasis added):
Ginger is not only an extremely popular dietary condiment used for flavoring food but also an herb that has been used for thousands of years as a medicinal herb to treat a variety of ailments. Chemical and metabolic analyses have revealed that ginger comprises hundreds of compounds and metabolites. The most extensively studied bioactive components include gingerols and shogaols, especially [6]-gingerol and [6]-shogaol, respectively….
Research data indicate that ginger and its constituents accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract, which supports the many observations of ginger’s effectiveness as an antinausea agent and as a possible colon cancer-preventing compound. Ginger acts as a potent antioxidant in vitro and ex vivo, but the data are not obvious for in vivo application and specific targets and mechanisms are lacking. Ginger appears to exert anti-inflammatory effects by suppressing COX-2 with subsequent inhibition of prostaglandin and leukotriene biosynthesis. On the other hand, the data supporting the effectiveness of ginger in alleviating pain and swelling associated with arthritis are somewhat conflicting. The most common use of ginger is to alleviate the vomiting and nausea associated with pregnancy, chemotherapy, and some types of surgery. The clinical data undoubtedly indicate that ginger is at least as effective, and may be better, than vitamin B6 in treating these symptoms. Again, mechanisms are lacking, but no reports indicate that ginger has any adverse side effects or that it can worsen illness in pregnant women or patients. Interest in ginger as an anticancer agent has markedly increased over the last few years and a direct protein target has been identified in colon cancer. Ginger also appears to reduce cholesterol and improve lipid metabolism, thereby helping to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
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COVID-19 patients, at least in one study, given ginger supplements reduced the duration of their hospitalization by a significant margin.
Via Nutrition & Metabolism (emphasis added):
This is the first clinical trial focusing on the effect of the ginger supplement on the clinical manifestation, evaluated as the length of hospital stays, of hospitalized individuals with COVID-19. A significant improvement in hospitalization time was observed in response to the ginger supplement. One possible explanation for the observed beneficial effect of the ginger supplement on the length of stay in study participants could be the ginger-derived exosomal micro-RNA, which has been demonstrated to inhibit lung inflammation caused by COVID-19 in both in vitro and in vivo studies.
I personally find the chewing of the actual root refreshingly tangy, if slightly masochistic, and there’s also evidence that the fresh root contains more potent bioactive ingredients than dried supplements or whatever other form.
So although I’m not giving medical advice, the ginger root as it comes from the ground seemingly offers the most therapeutic potential.
