Ginger
root is a widely used herb in cooking and adds a sparkle to many dishes. It is
ugly to contemplate and cheap to acquire, which keeps it at the top of my
shopping list. Culinary attributes apart, it has a strong reputation as one of
the good things of life.
A
quick scan of the cyber world brings up a huge array of benefits for consuming
ginger. These can be as simple as a digestive aid, perhaps a cure for motion
sickness, through the gamut to a preventative for cancer – of more than one
type as well.
But
its Achilles heel is its low price as an off the shelf material, so large
double blind clinical studies are still lacking. However, I like it and will
keep using it even if it’s just for the flavor.
There
is a new bit of excitement to ginger us up in the literature. Ferri-Lagneau et al from the depths of North Carolina
have been testing ginger in the context of anemia (1). Anemia is quite a
serious condition and drug treatments are expensive, require things like
intravenous addition, and aren’t free of unpleasant side effects. Thus if
ginger can be useful, it would be a very attractive alternative.
Genetically
modified zebra fish were volunteered to act as a model and showed a lack of red
blood cells. In adult vertebrates, blood cells are produced from stem cells in
the bone marrow. A group of proteins with the acronym Bmp’s control this
process (along with others).
When
you grind up and extract the good stuff from ginger root you have a plethora of
chemicals. These researchers were able to home in on one in particular called
Gingerol-10 that ginger up the Bmp’s to increase the production of red blood
cells in their zebra fish.
You
or I may not look much like zebra fish, but along with mice, they are a common
model in the start of research which will finally move in our direction. Apart
from potentially helping with anemia, anything that will ginger us up in the
BMP department is good for our bone building ability.
