Zingiber officinale is one of probably a hundred or more species in its genus, which is native to tropical Asia. It is an entirely domesticated plant, having no known wild populations, and is widely cultivated in tropical areas, including Africa and the Caribbean. Ginger is a monocot and, like many monocots, is an herbaceous plant with narrow, parallel-veined leaves and three-petaled flowers. The familiar flattened, short-branched, yellowish, spicy-tasting rhizome has been used as a food for thousands of years. In Chinese cuisine it may be treated as a vegetable, chopped and stir-fried; in Japanese cuisine it is pickled and served, in thin pink slices, as a condiment to accompany sushi; chunks of the rhizome are candied as snacks. Ginger has also contributed flavor to such products as ginger cookies.

Ginger is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for digestive problems and bleeding. Its most common use in the West is for nausea, including motion sickness, morning sickness, and postoperative nausea; ginger capsules or ginger syrup may be used. Ginger?s effectiveness for the former two applications, especially morning sickness, has been reasonably well proven by multiple human trials; it may also have value in treating chemotherapy-induced nausea. Trials for postoperative nausea have had mixed results, in which ginger sometimes appears equivalent to pharmaceutical drugs but sometimes is largely ineffective. Side effects of ginger are generally minimal; as one would expect of a widely used food plant, it has a good safety profile. Some have suggested that use in pregnancy should be avoided because a single compound from ginger, isolated and tested at high concentrations, was mutagenic in lab tests. However, crude extracts of ginger are actually antimutagenic, and no increase in miscarriages or birth defects has been observed in any of the human studies. A study using enormous doses of ginger in pregnant rats also showed no teratogenicity. The best available information therefore indicates that consumption of moderate amounts of ginger during pregnancy is likely to be safe. Interaction with anticoagulant drugs has been suggested to be possible based on anecdotal reports, although a recent human study showed no significant effect of ginger on warfarin pharmacokinetics.

Selected References

Borrelli, F., R. Capasso, G. Aviello, M. H. Pittler, and A. A. Izzo. 2005. Effectiveness and safety of ginger in the treatment of pregnancy-induced nausea and vomiting. Obstet. Gynecol. 105:849-856.

Grontved, A., T. Brask, J. Kambskard, and E. Hentzer. 1988. Ginger root against seasickness. A controlled trial on the open sea. Acta Otolaryngol. 105:45-49.

Jiang, X., K. M. Williams, W. S. Liauw, A. J. Ammit, B. D. Roufogalis, C. C. Duke, R. O. Day, and A. J. McLachlan. 2005. Effect of ginkgo and ginger on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of warfarin in healthy subjects. Br. J. Clin. Pharmacol. 59:425-432.

Manusirivithaya, S., M. Sripramote, S. Tangjitgamol, C. Sheanakul, S. Leelahakorn, T. Thavaramara, and K. Tangcharoenpanich. 2004. Antiemetic effect of ginger in gynecologic oncology patients receiving cisplatin. Int. J. Gynecol. Cancer 14:1063-1069.

Theilade, I. 1999. A synopsis of the genus Zingiber (Zingiberaceae) in Thailand. Nordic J. Bot. 19:389-410.

Weidner, M. S., and K. Sigwart. 2001. Investigation of the teratogenic potential of a Zingiber officinale extract in the rat. Reprod. Toxicol. 15:75-80.

Wu, D., and K. Larsen. 2000. Zingiberaceae. Pp. 322-377 in: Z. Wu and P. H. Raven, eds. Flora of China, vol. 24. Flagellariaceae through Marantaceae. Science Press: Beijing and Missouri Botanical Garden Press: St. Louis, MO.