By: Branislav Milošević |
Get healthy with the help of ginger |
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Ginger (Latin name Zingiber officinale) is a root native to India. It looks like a fist with irregular fingers.
It is being used in medicinal purposes for over 5,000 years. Today it is grown not only in Japan and India, but also in America.
It contains 0.25 to three percent essential oil, and five to eight percent gingerol – a thick oily liquid with pungent taste but odorless.
Healing treatment with ginger
Ginger is very healing. It removes nausea, improves digestion and relieves various pain.
It has beneficial effects on metabolism in patients with diabetes and is used as an anti-blood clotting and an anti inflammation agent.
It is used primarily in fresh form, as well as ground powder of dried roots.
Ginger wraps are made for treating acute or chronic pain caused by rheumatism and arthritis, back pain, stiff neck, stomach cramps, inflammation of the liver and kidneys, bronchitis and asthma.
You can cover the whole body with ginger wraps or bathe in a tub filled with water mixed with ginger to relax the entire body and eliminate toxins.
Therapy with ginger wraps
Therapy with ginger and ginger wraps stimulates the breakdown of hardened deposits of fat, proteins and minerals. It helps against rheumatism, arthritis and gout.
Furthermore, it improves blood circulation and energy flow, removes toxins and poisons.
Preparation
Put 50 grams of ginger powder in a bag, which must be made of a porous cotton canvas.
Boil three liters of water in a 5-liter pot. Remove the lid and let the chlorine flow out with the steam.
Put in the bag with ginger and cook on low heat for five minutes.
Remove from heat and hit the bag with a wooden spoon several times until ginger juice comes out and water takes on a pale yellow color.
Soak three towels in ginger water and leave them in a basin to cool slightly. Then slightly squeeze towels and apply them to your body.
Therapy sequence
• The first three days, rub the soles of your feet and your knees with towels soaked in ginger water.
• On the fourth, fifth and sixth day put wraps all over your body, especially the painful area.
• In the morning, before showering, vigorously rub the whole body with a towel soaked in ginger water, since it has a very stimulating effect on the whole organism. This process improves the flow of energy and breathing. Perform it every day for 16 or 24 days.
• Every night, wash your feet in ginger water, since that will promote your sleep.
Ginger has multiple effects:
- analgesic: relieves pain
- sedative: calms and reduces irritability
- diuretic: promotes urination and removes excess water
- antimicrobial: destroys pathogenic microorganisms
- anti-inflammatory: reduces inflammation and pain caused by arthritis
The best remedy against nausea
Ginger root, rhizome to be more exact, has been used in China, India and other Asian countries for 2500 years for better digestion and anti-nausea remedy.
That is a remedy people reach for the first in the case of sickness.
It operates primarily on the digestive system, not the brain. Therefore it does not cause accompanying phenomena such as stupor, which typically occurs after taking pharmaceuticals.
The fact that ginger cures all types of nausea has been confirmed by centuries of use, controlled scientific studies and enthusiasm of people who have tried it.
German government's Commission E has approved ginger as a treatment for nausea caused by driving and as a means to facilitate digestion.
A pioneering study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet in 1982 by the American psychologist Daniel Mowrey, provided scientific evidence to the effects of ginger on nausea.
Mowrey found that subjects seated in a rotating seat felt less nauseated if they previously took 1000 mg (two capsules) of powdered ginger.
Ginger was more effective than Dramamine and placebo.
An experiment conducted on 80 Danish naval cadets showed that those who took ginger capsules half an hour before sailing to rough seas were less affected by seasickness than those who took placebo.
Ginger reduced vomiting by 72%, and the protection lasted for about four hours.
Ginger against morning sickness during pregnancy
Some scientists recommend ginger against morning sickness during early pregnancy.
A controlled German study on 27 women found that ginger was effective in 70 percent of women who suffered from the condition called hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of nausea and vomiting associated with pregnancy.
Taking 250 milligrams of ginger root powder in capsules four times a day alleviated the nausea and reduced the number of vomiting attacks in early pregnancy.
Dr. Stephen Fuldera, a British expert on herbal medicines, after careful and extensive review of the medical literature, declared in 1996 that a "normal dose" of ginger was "completely safe for use in pregnancy."
Nevertheless, pregnant women should always consult a doctor before starting taking any remedy, including ginger.
How safe is ginger?
Ginger has been reliably used for centuries as food and medicine.
None of the trials in humans have been reported any adverse effect of ginger, and in the medical literature there is no information about its toxicity.
In animal studies, ginger was not toxic even at very high doses. That is why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled ginger as a product generally safe to use.
However, research shows that ginger thins the blood, which is why if you are taking blood thinners you need to be careful when taking large quantities of ginger.
If you are pregnant, use ginger for morning sickness only on medical advice and do not take more than 1000 mg per day, which is the dose that proved to be safe in studies.
Composition of 100 grams of edible portion of ginger root
- water 81.7 g
- calories 69
- protein 1.7 g
- carbohydrates 15.1 g
- fat 0.7 g
- 2 g fiber
- calcium 18 mg
- phosphorus 27 mg
- iron 0.5 mg
- sodium 13 mg
- 415 mg of potassium
- 3 mg of vitamin c
- thiamine 0.02 mg
- riboflavin 0.03 mg
- niacin 0.7 mg
From the book by Branislav M. Milošević “Đumbirom do zdravlja” (Belgrade-Aranđelovac 2011).
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