Healthsomeness Written Logo

Ginger

This article is part of a larger article titled "100+ Healthiest Foods On Planet Earth."  Read it here.

Ginger Nutritional Information (per 100g)

Water: 78.9 g
Calories: 80 kcal
Protein: 1.8 g
Carbohydrate: 17.8 g
Dietary fiber: 2 g
Sugars: 1.7 g
Fat: 0.8 g
Saturated fat: 0.2 g
Monounsaturated fat: 0.2 g
Polyunsaturated fat: 0.2 g
Vitamin C: 5 mg
Vitamin B3: 0.8 mg
Vitamin B6: 0.2 mg
Vitamin B9: 11 μg
Vitamin E: 0.3 mg
Vitamin K: 0.1 μg
Calcium: 16 mg
Iron: 0.6 mg
Magnesium: 43 mg
Phosphorus: 34 mg
Potassium: 415 mg
Sodium: 13 mg
Zinc: 0.3 mg

Widely used in many cultures, ginger has been an important part of folk medicine for centuries, claiming to cure all kinds of problems including sickness, pain and digestive problems. Here are some the health benefits it brings with it:

Relieves nausea. It is often touted as a miracle cure for morning sickness during pregnancy, and now a study published in 2014, has looked at the effects of ginger consumption on women who experienced mild to moderate morning sickness before 16 weeks gestation.

They were divided into 3 groups – those who received a ginger tablet, those who received a placebo and those who received nothing.

The study was conducted over 7 days and the results showed that ginger did indeed help reduce the occurrences of morning sickness amongst the women who took the ginger tablet.

Another recent study has looked at 16 trials and reviews relating to how ginger affects symptoms of nausea in general and the results suggest that in those cases ginger did have some impact on nausea, although it was recommended that further research be done in this area.

Improves pain and inflammation. There has been quite a bit of interest in this area of study, perhaps because most trials show that ginger does appear to be beneficial as a pain reliever. One such example is shown in this study on the effects of ginger on pain experienced by patients suffering from osteoarthritis of the knees.

It is also showing itself to be an excellent anti-inflammatory, as shown in this study by Matsumura et al on the effects of ginger on muscle soreness post-exercise.

However, more research is still needed to really look in-depth at the anti-inflammatory and pain relieving effects of ginger, but the results so far are definitely promising.

Naturally relieves menstrual pain. Between September 2006 and February 2007, a study of 150 women, aged 18 years and older, was conducted to examine the effects of ginger, ibuprofen and mefenamic acid on menstrual pains.

The participants were divided into 3 groups, each of which received one of the aforementioned treatments – 250mg ginger tablet, 250mg mefenamic acid and 400mg ibuprofen.

The results found that ginger was just as effective at relieving menstrual cramps and pains as the mefenamic acid and ibuprofen, making it an excellent natural alternative to modern medicines, in relation to menstrual pain.

Helps fight against cancer. Published in 2015, a study conducted by Akimoto et al has looked at the effectiveness of ginger in destroying pancreatic cancer cells in both human and mouse cancer cells.

The team created an extract from ginger and used it to treat the cells; they also injected mice with the cancer cells and treated them with the ginger extract to test the effectiveness of the solution on live models.

The results suggest that ginger has a significant role to play in the fight against cancer in the future, and that further study in this area needs to be done using human trials.