"Benefits of Ginger for Obesity and Fatty Liver Disease"
Ginger has been used in India and China
to treat illnesses for thousands of years…
but, they also used mercury
so that doesn’t really tell you much.
That’s what we have science for.
But, when you see titles like this in the medical literature
on the beneficial effects of ginger on obesity,
for example, you may not be aware they’re talking about
the beneficial effects of ginger on fat rats.
Wait, why don’t they just do human clinical studies?
The lack of clinical studies may be attributed to,
for example, ethical issues and limited commercial support.
Limited commercial support I can see.
Ginger is dirt cheap; who’s going to pay for the study,
but ethical issues?
We’re just talking about feeding people some ginger?
Studies like this are relatively cheap and easy to do,
cross-sectional studies where you take a snapshot in time
of ginger consumption and of body weight,
and you do see that people who are obese
tend to eat significantly less ginger;
and so, they suggest this demonstrates that the use
of ginger could have relevance for weight management,
but maybe ginger consumption is just a marker of more
traditional less Westernized junk food diet.
You don’t know…
until you put it to the test.
A randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of
a hot ginger beverage, by which they just meant
2 grams of ginger powder in a cup of hot water,
so about one teaspoon of ground ginger
stirred into a teacup of hot water.
That’s about five cents worth of ginger.
And…
after the ginger, the participants reported feeling significantly
less hungry, and in response to the question
“how much do you think you could eat?”
described lower prospective food intake.
Now the control was just hot water alone,
so the participants knew when they were getting the ginger;
so, there could be a placebo effect.
They considered just stuffing the ginger
into capsules to do a double-blinded study,
but they think part of the effect of ginger
may actually be through taste receptors on the tongue;
so, they didn’t want to interfere with that.
Not all the effects were just subjective though.
Four hours after drinking, the metabolic rate in
the ginger group was elevated compared to control,
though in a previous study, when fresh ginger was added
to a meal, there was no bump in metabolic rate.
The researchers suggest this may be due to the
“different method of ginger administration,”
giving fresh instead of dried,
and there are dehydration products that form when you
dry ginger that may have unique properties.
Now although satiety and fullness were greater
with ginger compared to control, the researchers didn’t then
follow the participants out to see if they
actually ate less for lunch.
The problem is there’s never been
a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study
of that much ginger and weight loss…
until now.
Twelve weeks of that same teaspoon of ginger powder
a day but this time hidden in capsules and…
consumption of ginger for 12 weeks
significantly reduced body mass index.
Check it out.
No change in the placebo group,
but a drop in the ginger group, though body fat estimates
didn’t really change, which is kind of the whole point.
What about using ginger to pull fat out
of specific organs like the liver?
Evidently treatment with ginger ameliorates
fructose-induced fatty liver in rats.
You know what else would have worked?
Not feeding them so much sugar in the first place.
But there’s never been a human...
you know where this is going…
until now.
Ginger supplementation in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease:
a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study--
a teaspoon of ginger a day or placebo for 12 weeks.
They were all told to limit their dietary cholesterol intake—
I’ve got a video on why that’s important—
and get more fiber and exercise;
so, even the placebo group should improve.
But did the ginger group do any better?
Yes, daily consumption of just that teaspoon
of ground ginger a day resulted in a significant decrease
in inflammatory marker levels,
and improvements in liver function tests,
and a drop in liver fat.
All for five cents worth of ginger powder a day.
And what are the side-effects, a few gingery burps?
I searched for downsides and didn’t find any other than,
of course, ginger paralysis.
What?!
In 1930, thousands of Americans were poisoned by a ginger extract.
First of all, who drinks ginger extract?
Oh, 1930 it was Prohibition, so they bought ginger extract
as a legal way to get their hands on alcohol.
Little did they realize that the bootleggers
had been taking advantage of the demand,
swapped in a cheaper ginger substitute,
a varnish compound, in order to make greater profits.
The moral of the story being…
don’t drink varnish.