Ginger Quells Chemo Related Nausea

Here's another great on for the complementary medicine file: in the largest study of its kind yet, researchers have found that just a smidgen of purified ginger in supplement form (one-quarter teaspoon to one-half teaspoon of the spice each day) could reduce chemotherapy-related nausea by 40 % on the first day of treatment when used in combination with traditional anti-nausea medications. What's so great about this news is that if nausea is reduced on day one, patients tend to have reduced nausea throughout treatment, according to the study's author.

Statistics show that about 70 % of cancer patients experience nausea during chemo, although anti-emetic drugs often help prevent actual vomiting. In this new study, 644 people - mostly breast-cancer patients - were given ginger supplements twice a day for six days, including the three days before and after they started chemotherapy. The patients took 0.5, 1, or 1.5 grams of ginger daily, which was divided into two doses, or they took identical placebo supplements that contained no ginger. They found that the ginger-taking patients, regardless of daily dose, reported a greater reduction in nausea on day one of treatment than those on a placebo. Interestingly, those taking the two lowest doses of ginger reported greater relief than those taking the highest dose, so taking more of the spice isn't necessarily better (they speculate that at one gram the gut reaches maximum absorption). The reduction in nausea was substantial despite prior research had suggested that ginger supplements couldn't reduce nausea during chemotherapy. Now we know that giving the supplement 3 days before onset of treatment, which had not been done in previous studies, ahem, the anti-inflammatory property of ginger get a head start on stopping nausea.

If you're feeling queasy, consuming fresh ginger root from the grocery store can also help, but purified capsules may work better due to their faster and easier absorption in the GI tract. In theory, ginger-containing products such as ginger ale, ginger snaps, and other products could reduce nausea, too, but only if they contained real ginger root, not just ginger flavoring.

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