"Ginger for Osteoarthritis"
If ginger is so effective against migraines, and the pain of menstrual cramps,
what about osteoarthritis, an all too common disorder
that produces chronic pain and disability?
The first major study, published in 2000, showed no benefit over placebo,
but the study only lasted three weeks. The next study in 2001, lasted longer, six weeks,
and was by the end, indeed able to show significantly better results than placebo.
But the placebo did so well, reducing pain from like 60s, on a scale of 1 to 100,
down to like 40s, that bringing pain down that extra little bit into the 30s
was not especially clinically significant, and so an editorial in the official
Journal of the American College of Rheumatology
concluded that ginger "should not be recommended
for treatment of arthritis because of the limited efficacy."
But since that time there's been a few other trials that showed
more impressive results, such that ginger is now considered
indeed able to reduce pain and disability in osteoarthritis.
But how well compared to other treatments?
Since osteoarthritis is a chronic disease, it's especially important
to weigh the risk versus benefit of treatment,
and the commonly used anti-inflammatory drugs
can carry serious cardiovascular and gastrointestinal risks.
For example, if you stick cameras down people
with osteoarthritis on drugs like ibuprofen, nearly half were found
to have major injuries to the lining of their small intestines,
7 out of 16.
Now you can reduce that risk by taking an additional drug
to counteract the side effects of the first drug.
Ibuprofen-type drugs reduce our stomach lining's ability to protect itself
from stomach acid, so by blocking acid production
with another drug one can lower the risk.
But ginger can actually improve stomach lining protection.
So ginger, at the kinds of doses used to treat osteoarthritis,
a quarter to a half teaspoon a day,
can be considered not just neutral on the stomach, but beneficial.
So can be as pain relieving as ibuprofen, but without the risk of stomach ulcers.
OK, but this sounded nutty to me: topical ginger treatment, as in
externally applying a ginger-soaked cloth or patch to the affected joint.
It was a controlled study, compress versus patch,
both showing remarkable and lasting pain relief
for osteoarthritis sufferers.
But what's missing? Right, a control group.
There was no placebo patch.
I don't care if ginger has been applied externally
to painful joints for thousands of years.
The placebo effect has been shown to be remarkably effective in osteoarthritis
to provide pain relief, and so until there's a controlled study
on topical ginger, I'm not going to believe it.
But there wasn't such a study...
until 20 men stuck ginger slices onto their scrotum.
Men with inflamed testicles
applied 6 to 10 paper-thin slices of ginger over the affected testes.
And evidently, the ginger group healed nearly three times faster.
Unfortunately the original source is in Chinese so I can't get further details,
as is the only other controlled study on topical ginger I could find.
This evidently translates to "evaluation of point plaster therapy
with ginger powder in preventing nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy."
Well, we know ginger powder taken orally can be
a miracle against chemo-induced vomiting.
What about stuffing it into your belly button?
The external application of ginger powder to the so-called point of Shenque,
which is the navel,
while the control group got potato powder into their belly button.
And, lo and behold, the ginger group
evidently had significantly less nausea and vomiting.
Unfortunately only the abstract is in English, so I can't
tell how they effectively blinded the patients to the treatment.
I mean, presumably it would be easy to tell whether or not you were in
the ginger or the placebo group just by the smell.
But maybe they controlled for that?
Until we know more, I would suggest those who want to try ginger
use it in their stomach, rather than on their stomach.