Ginger Found to Be of Benefit Against Chemo-Induced Nausea

[Barb73]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30750328/

Report:

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Ginger, long used as a folk remedy for soothing tummyaches, helped tame one of the most dreaded side effects of cancer treatment — nausea from chemotherapy, the first large study to test the herb for this has found.

People who started taking ginger capsules several days before a chemo infusion had fewer and less severe bouts of nausea afterward than others who were given dummy capsules, the federally funded study found.

"We were slightly beside ourselves" to see how much it helped, said study leader Julie Ryan of the University of Rochester in New York.

Results were released Thursday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and will be presented at the group's annual meeting later this month.

But don't reach for the ginger ale. Many sodas and cookies contain only flavoring — not real ginger, Ryan said. Her study tested a drug-like ginger root extract, and it's not known if people could get the same benefits from ginger teas or the powdered ginger sold as a spice.

Still, ginger capsules may offer a cheap, simple way to fight nausea, which is far more than just a quality-of-life issue, doctors say. Some cancer patients cut treatment short or refuse chemo altogether because of nausea, hurting their chances of beating the disease.

Medicines do a good job of curbing vomiting, but nearly three-fourths of chemo patients still suffer nausea, which can sometimes be worse, Ryan said.

"Patients ask all the time, 'What else can I do?"' said Dr. Richard Schilsky, a cancer specialist at the University of Chicago and president of the oncology society.

Long-touted folk remedy

Ginger has long been touted for stomach upsets, ranging from motion sickness to morning sickness during pregnancy. Studies have had mixed results.

The new one used a specially formulated gelcap containing concentrated, purified ginger root extract made by Aphios Corp. of Woburn, Mass.

The study involved 644 patients from cancer centers around the nation who had suffered nausea in a previous round of chemotherapy. Two-thirds had breast cancer and the rest, other forms of the disease. They were placed in four groups and given one of three doses of ginger (the equivalent of one-half, 1 or 1 1/2 grams of ginger per day) or dummy capsules in addition to standard anti-sickness medicines.

Patients took the capsules for five days, beginning three days before chemo treatment. They rated their nausea symptoms on a seven-point scale on the first day of each of three treatments.

All of the ginger doses significantly reduced nausea, and the middle and lowest doses gave the best results. Patients taking ginger scored their nausea an average of two or more points lower on the nausea scale, about a 40 percent improvement over their previous chemo treatments without ginger, Ryan said. Those given dummy pills reported hardly any difference.

Timing may have been key to success: An earlier study found ginger did no good when patients waited until the day of treatment to start taking it. In the new study, researchers wanted to see if having ginger in the system ahead of time would help.

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(Associated Press, MSNBC, May 14, 2009)

Disclaimer:

The information contained in these articles may or may not be in agreement with my own opinions. They are not being posted with the intention of being medical advice of any kind.

[ts]

Wow, amazing.

I drank ginger tea and we ate lots of fresh ginger in our dinners during chemo. I was fine with spicy food almost everyday of treatment.

[Barb73]

That is good to know, ts, anything that may help to keep the appetite from waning.

Thanks for letting us know about the ginger tea and the fresh ginger.

Barbara