Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is a plant that grows in India, China, Mexico, and several other countries. The underground stem is the active part used. Ginger has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for the treatment of inflammation and rheumatism and is used in China and some Western countries as a treatment for nausea, including nausea associated with chemotherapy. This page discusses the health benefits of ginger and recent research with ginger root. Ginger is available in a natural diet pill formula called Diet Rx. See below.

Planetary Formulas Ginger Extract supplement, 350 mg
5% Gingerols - Supports Digestion
Herbal Supplement

Full spectrum Ginger extract combines an extract concentrated to 5% gingerols, with pure, cultivated ginger root, to deliver a broad spectrum of constituents.

Supplement Facts:
Ginger root - Rhizome - 250 mg*
   Standardized Ginger Extract 5%
   Yielding 12.5 mg Gingerols
Ginger Rhizome 100 mg*

Buy Ginger supplement, Diet Rx or to see a complete list of top quality products at Physician Formulas
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Suggested Use: One or two ginger tablets daily, or as recommended by your health care professional.
* Ginger root extract daily value not established

Diet Rx with ginger for better weight control management
This natural appetite suppressant works without stimulants. Diet Rx has no added caffeine, ephedra, ephedrine alkaloids, synephrine, hormones, guarana, ginseng, or stimulating amino acids. 

Benefits of Diet Rx with ginger, hoodia extract, green tea extract, spirullina, and more than a dozen herbs
All natural appetite suppressant, decreases appetite so you eat less
Helps you maintain healthy blood sugar levels
Helps you maintain healthy cholesterol and lipid levels
Provides a variety of antioxidant from two dozen herbs and nutrients
Provides healthy fiber
Improves energy
Balances mood
Improves mental concentration and focus
Improves will power and choice of food selection

Ginger is a blood thinner
Gingerols, the active components of ginger, represent a potential new class of platelet activation inhibitors. Administration of 50 gm of fat to 30 healthy adult volunteers decreased fibrinolytic activity from a mean of 64 to 52 units. Supplementation of 5 gm of ginger powder with fatty meal not only prevented the fall in fibrinolytic activity but actually increased it significantly. This fibrinolytic enhancing property is a further addition to the therapeutic potential of ginger. See also blood clot for information on herbs that have blood thinning potential.

Ginger and osteoarthritis
A highly purified and standardized ginger extract had a statistically significant effect on reducing symptoms of osteoarthritis of the knee. This effect was moderate. There was a good safety profile, with mostly mild GI adverse events in the ginger extract group.

Ginger and pregnancy
Ginger is effective for relieving the severity of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy. Using ginger to quell morning sickness does not appear to raise the risk of birth defects.

Ginger, nausea, and surgery
At a dose of at least 1 gram, ginger is effective in preventing the nausea and vomiting that often afflicts patients after undergoing surgery. Ginger has been used as a traditional medicine in China to treat nausea, vomiting, and other gastrointestinal symptoms. In the last decade, several studies have evaluated the effects of ginger in preventing nausea and vomiting after surgery. To look at all the evidence available, statisticians from Naresuan University in Phitsanulok, Thailand pooled data from five clinical trials that involved a total of 363 patients. Compared with placebo, ginger cut the risk of nausea and vomiting in the 24 hours after surgery by 31 percent. That said, a substantial percentage of patients in the ginger arm still had postoperative nausea and vomiting -- 35 percent. The only apparent side effect seen with ginger was abdominal discomfort. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, January 2006.
   This herb is effective in reducing nausea associated with chemotherapy if used beginning a few days before the drug treatment.

Ginger as an antioxidant
Ginger significantly lowered lipid peroxidation by maintaining the activities of the antioxidant enzymes -- superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase in rats. The blood glutathione content was significantly increased in ginger fed rats. Similar effects were also observed after natural antioxidant ascorbic acid (100 mg/kg, body wt) treatment. The results indicate that ginger is comparatively as effective as ascorbic acid as an antioxidant. Ginger also protects tissues from radiation damage. You may also consider other supplements with antioxidant benefits such as curcumin and acai berry supplements.

Ginger for blood sugar and cholesterol management
Anti-diabetic and hypolipidaemic properties of ginger (Zingiber officinale) in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.
Br J Nutr. 2006 Oct;96(4):660-6. Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Kuwait University, 13060-Safat, Kuwait.
An aqueous extract of raw ginger was administered daily (500 mg/kg, intraperitoneally) for a period of 7 weeks to streptozotocin induced diabetic rats. The STZ-injected rats exhibited hyperglycemia accompanied with weight loss, indicating their diabetic condition. At a dose of 500 mg/kg, raw ginger was significantly effective in lowering serum glucose, cholesterol and triacylglycerol levels in the ginger-treated diabetic rats compared with the control diabetic rats. The ginger treatment also resulted in a significant reduction in urine protein levels. In addition, the ginger-treated diabetic rats sustained their initial weights during the treatment period. Moreover, ginger decreased both water intake and urine output in the STZ-induced diabetic rats.

Ginger and Ovarian Cancer
Ginger can kill ovarian cancer cells. The study on ginger was done using cells in a lab dish, which is a long way from finding that it works in actual cancer patients. Researchers tested ginger powder dissolved in solution by putting it on ovarian cancer cell cultures. Ginger killed the ovarian cancer cells in two different ways -- through a self-destruction process called apoptosis and through autophagy in which cells digest themselves. Ginger spice has been shown to help control inflammation, which can contribute to the development of ovarian cancer cells. In multiple ovarian cancer cell lines, ginger induced cell death at a similar or better rate than the platinum-based chemotherapy drugs typically used to treat ovarian cancer. Whether the same effects of ginger in test tubes occurs when humans consume ginger is not known.

Forms of ginger root
Ginger is sold in various forms including as a culinary root, ginger tea, ginger powder, ginger powder supplement, ginger extract supplement, and in various candies.

Q. I see that you have a high opinion of the health value of ginger. Does it make a difference what form of ginger one uses? I drink ginger tea. Sometimes I use fresh ginger. Sometimes the powdered. Powdered is a lot easier. I've heard of some herbs that are more potent in the dried and powdered form, and some that are much more valuable fresh. How is it with ginger?
   A. In the vast majority of cases, fresh herbs are preferable to the powdered forms that have been sitting in bottles for weeks or months. Ginger is beneficial in all forms. I suggest eating fresh ginger on a regular basis and you may also wish to take a ginger extract capsule a couple of times a week.

Ginger summary
Ginger has many benefits, including lessening of nausea. Modern medicine has not taken advantage of this plant's potential.

Ginger Extract
Ginger is sold by raw material suppliers in various extracts, including 5% gingerol.

Ginger Research studies
Ginger appears to help pregnant women who suffer from morning sickness, without side effects to the unborn child, according to a review of the medical literature. In six studies that examined the effects of ginger in reducing nausea and vomiting in expecting mothers, ginger worked better than a placebo, or inactive drug, and as well as Vitamin B6, which has been shown to improve nausea and vomiting in some pregnant women. None of the women who took ginger had problems with their pregnancies, the authors report in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Effect of a ginger extract on pregnancy-induced nausea: a randomised controlled trial.
Willetts KE. University of New South Wales, Royal Hospital for Women, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia.
To investigate the effect of a ginger extract (EV.EXT35) on the symptoms of morning sickness. The participants included 120 women less than 20 weeks pregnant, who had experienced morning sickness daily for at least a week and had had no relief of symptoms through dietary changes. Random allocation of 125 mg ginger extract (equivalent to 1.5 g of dried ginger) or placebo given four times per day for 4 days. RESULTS: The nausea experience score was significantly less for the ginger extract group relative to the placebo group after the first day of treatment and this difference was present for each treatment day. Retching was also reduced by the ginger extract although to a lesser extent. No significant effect was observed on vomiting. Follow-up of the pregnancies revealed normal ranges of birthweight, gestational age, Apgar scores and frequencies of congenital abnormalities when the ginger group infants were compared to the general population of infants born at the Royal Hospital for Women for the year 1999-2000. Ginger can be considered as a useful treatment option for women suffering from morning sickness.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Rosc.), a dietary supplement, protects mice against radiation-induced lethality: mechanism of action.
Cancer Biother Radiopharm. 2004 Aug;19(4):422-35.
The radioprotective effect of hydroalcoholic extract of ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale) was studied in mice administered 250 mg/kg ginger extract orally using oral gavage once daily for 5 consecutive days before exposure to gamma-radiation. The animals were monitored daily up to 30 days postirradiation for the development of symptoms of radiation sickness and mortality. Pretreatment of mice with ginger reduced the severity of symptoms of radiation sickness and mortality at all the exposure doses and also increased the number of survivors in a ginger + irradiation group compared to the concurrent double-distilled water + irradiation group. The ginger treatment protected mice against gastrointestinal-related deaths as well as bone-marrow-related deaths. The mechanism of action of ginger was determined by evaluating its free-radical scavenging capability. Ginger was found to scavenge *OH, O2*- and ABTS*+ radicals in a dose-dependent manner in vitro. Ginger was nontoxic up to a dose of 1500 mg/kg body weight, the highest drug dose that could be tested for acute toxicity.

Influence of Ginger Rhizome (Zingiber officinale Rosc) on Survival, Glutathione and Lipid Peroxidation in Mice after Whole-Body Exposure to Gamma Radiation.
Radiat Res. 2003 Nov;160(5):584-92.
Department of Radiobiology, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal 576 119, India.
The radioprotective effect of the hydroalcoholic extract of ginger rhizome was studied. Mice were given 10 mg/kg ginger  intraperitoneally once daily for five consecutive days before exposure to 6-12 Gy of gamma radiation and were monitored daily up to 30 days postirradiation for the development of symptoms of radiation sickness and mortality. Pretreatment of mice with ginger reduced the severity of radiation sickness and the mortality at all doses. The ZOE treatment protected mice from GI syndrome as well as bone marrow syndrome. The dose reduction factor for ginger was found to be 1.15. The optimum protective dose of 10 mg/kg ginger was (1)(50) of the LD(50) (500 mg/kg). Irradiation of the animals resulted in a dose-dependent elevation in the lipid peroxidation and depletion of GSH on day 31 postirradiation; both effects were lessened by pretreatment with ginger. Ginger also had a dose-dependent antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella typhimurium, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans.

Anti-tumor-promoting activities of selected pungent phenolic substances present in ginger.
J Environ Pathol Toxicol Oncol. 1999;18(2):131-9.
Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Zingiberaceae) has been widely used as a dietary spice, as well as in traditional oriental medicine. The rhizome of ginger contains pungent vanillyl ketones, including [6]-gingerol and [6]-paradol, and has been reported to possess a strong anti-inflammatory activity. These pungent substances have a vanilloid structure found in other chemopreventive phytochemicals, including curcumin. In our study, we found anti-tumor-promoting properties of [6]-gingerol and [6]-paradol. Taken together, these findings suggest that pungent vanilloids found in ginger possess potential chemopreventive activities.

Ginger supplement questions
Q. I am a health writer and wonder if you could supply a few quotes for an article I'm now writing on ginger. In particular I'm interested in evidence supporting ginger's ability to boost metabolism and aid weight loss. What is the active component in ginger that promotes weight loss? And if you don't want to take a ginger supplement, how much ginger a day do you need to ingest in order to see results? I'm also interested in ginger's cholesterol-lowering and blood-sugar regulating properties and anti-inflammatory effects.
   A. I am not aware of any studies with ginger and weight loss. I would not expect ginger, unless perhaps taken in massive amounts, not to have enough of an influence on appetite or metabolism to lead to weigh loss. I personally eat a strawberry-sized amount of fresh ginger a day and have not noticed any effect on my weight. A few rodent studies have shown an influence of ginger on fat metabolism, but no convincing human studies are available to recommend ginger supplements for weight loss. Gingerols, which are the major components of ginger, are known to improve insulin sensitivity in rodents and lab studies do find ginger substances to have anti-inflammatory activities. I have not seen actual human studies with ginger and cholesterol or ginger and blood sugar control. Even though these human studies are lacking, I am convinced, reviewing the laboratory and animal studies, that ginger can be considered a superfood and I consume it on a regular basis.