Ginger has been used for thousands of years to prevent or treat nausea, leading researchers to believe that the plant could also help people with cancer avoid the nausea induced by chemotherapy.
At present chemotherapy patients take anti-nausea drugs that help them avoid this unpleasant side effect. But for most people, two to five days after receiving chemotherapy, a second wave of nausea may hit.Researchers now say they are studying whether capsules of a standardized form of ginger can help relieve this delayed nausea. In a trial that has recently commenced researchers plan to enroll 180 adults with any kind of cancer at 10 sites throughout the US. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: low-dose ginger, high-dose ginger or placebo, taking the pill twice a day for three days after completing a chemotherapy infusion. They also receive their standard anti-nausea drugs, which vary depending on the type of chemotherapy being given.
Recent research has found ginger to be effective at relieving nausea related to motion sickness, post-operative recovery and pregnancy. Thus researchers say from previous studies it has been proven that ginger is very safe in treating nausea with minimal side effects and at the same time it tends to be inexpensive when compared to other anti-nausea drugs available in the market.
