October 25, 2001 – Taking one gram of ginger per day is believed to significantly reduce morning sickness and vomiting episodes during pregnancy. This is what results from a clinical trial1 produced by researchers at Chiang Mai University in Thailand.
For their study, they recruited 70 pregnant women to assess the effectiveness of powdered ginger for relieving nausea. Subjects were randomly given either 250 mg ginger capsules or a placebo for four days, four times a day. This is the first research attempting to evaluate the effectiveness of ginger on nausea during pregnancy, the only other such trial was carried out in 1990 by Danish researchers with the aim of treating thehyperemesis gravidarum, that is, episodes of vomiting so severe that pregnant women must be hospitalized.
Thus, the results of the two studies indicate that the administration of one gram of ginger per day considerably reduces nausea during the first four months of pregnancy as well as vomiting. Improvement in symptoms occurs 48 hours after treatment and then increases. One week after treatment, subjects were asked to rate the severity of their symptoms using a measurement scale and report any adverse events or side effects: 87.5% of women treated with ginger reported improvement in their symptoms. compared to 28.5% of women treated with placebo. Important fact to emphasize: the absence of severe side effects. Only minor side effects (headache, abdominal discomfort, heartburn and diarrhea) have been reported. Three spontaneous abortions were reported in the placebo group and one in the other group. Most women have carried their pregnancies to term. None of the newborns presented with a birth defect and all left the hospital in good health.
The success of this research in particular brought to the spotlight a warning from Commission E, following an experiment in vitro, which suggests that the administration of large doses of 6-gingerol, one of the pungent-flavored building blocks of ginger, can cause mutagenic activities. However, this contraindication is questioned due to a lack of scientific and medical evidence. For the next studies on ginger, researchers from the Thai University recommend in this regard to evaluate the potential risks of toxicity on the fetus, question to allay fears and to determine the chemical composition of ginger, a procedure that should be standard in herbal trials.
Finally, another comparative study2, published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine of the month of September, indicates that the acupressure technique practiced on the point Neiguan (P-6) is an effective treatment for reducing nausea and vomiting episodes during pregnancy, chemotherapy or motion sickness. Researchers have found that it is possible to eliminate the discomfort by wearing a bracelet on the wrist, thereby exerting pressure on the P-6 point.
Monique Lalancette – PasseportSanté.net
From Herbal Gram no 53 and Reuters Health, October 18, 2001
1. Vutyavanich T, Kraisarin T, Ruangsri R. Ginger for nausea and vomiting in pregnancy: randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial. Obstet Gynecol 2001 Apr; 97 (4): 577-82.
2. Werntoft E, Dykes AK. Effect of acupressure on nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. A randomized, placebo-controlled, pilot study. J Reprod Med 2001 Sep; 46 (9): 835-9.
