Put Some Spice In Your Life
04 Jun 2009
"Give Fae ginger ale for her queasy stomach", I suggested to my daughter. But, "What’s in ginger ale that’s going to help?" she asked me. Telling her that my Mother gave me ginger ale for this ailment wasn’t the scientific reply she expected from me. Unfortunately, my Mother had never mentioned the magic ingredient in this drink. So I decided to research the health benefits of ginger and other spices.
A report on spices in Nutrition Action Health Letter contained a initial surprise for me, and probably some mothers. It reports little or no ginger in most ginger ale! And whether ginger is effective depends on to whom you listen.
Dr. Suzanna Zick, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, reports four studies have been done on how ginger helps in treating morning sickness. Pregnant women were given 1000 milligrams (mg) of ground ginger, or 500 mg of ginger extract for four weeks. In each case ginger was superior to a placebo to ease this troublesome condition.
Zick believes that ginger blocks the action of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the bowel, that can trigger nausea.
The space agency NASA, however, found that ginger was of little help in stopping motion sickness in astronauts when they were strapped into rotating chairs. Dutch scientists were more successful. They gave powdered ginger to naval cadets while in heavy seas. This didn’t stop nausea or vertigo, but it did stop vomiting and cold sweats.
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada says that the use of 1,000 mg of ginger, (about one-half of a teaspoon’s worth), in divided doses, "appears to be safe" for morning sickness in pregnant women.
Richard Anderson, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says that small amounts of cinnamon help to decrease blood sugar in diabetes patients. 60 Pakistani patients with diabetes were given 1 gram and 6 grams of ground cinnamon daily to 60 days. At the end of 40 days the group receiving 1 gram of cinnamon had a decrease in blood sugar of about 25 percent and those receiving 6 grams had a drop of 29 percent.
Later studies by Anderson using 10 grams of cinnamon powder for diabetes patients showed only a decrease of 10 percent. Other studies in Holland and Germany using cinnamon showed no change in blood sugar. No one can explain this discrepancy in these results. But Anderson believes the dosage might have been too low in the Type 2 diabetes patients who were overweight.
Any cautions? No one knows if cinnamon reacts with other drugs. Anderson also suggests using a water extract of the spice when using it for a long time, as some ingredients in cinnamon can thin the blood. So check with your doctor before using cinnamon and other spices.
I didn’t realize that when I enjoy curry at Indian restaurants or add mustard to a cheese sandwich I’m eating turmeric. Researchers are testing this spice as a cure for cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease. But it’s actually curcumin in turmeric, the cause of the yellow colour, that interests scientists.
Dr. Bharat Aggarwal, professor of cancer research at the Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, says curcumin induces a programmed death of cancer cells. In addition, it suppresses formation of new blood vessels that nourish tumours. Rats, for instance, get fewer cancers of the breast and colon when given curcumin. Currently patients with advanced cancers are being given this spice to see if it has any effect on cancer growth.
Researchers at Harvard have gone a step further and injected curcumin into the blood stream of mice with Alzheimer disease-like plaques. A week later studies showed a 30 percent decrease in these plaques. Research into how this spice affects humans with Alzheimer’s Disease is only in preliminary stages.
For the moment adding a little spice to our life appears to be a sound idea. I just wish my Mother was still alive so she could see how much I now know about spices. But there’s a lingering question. If there’s little or no ginger in ginger ale I still can’t tell my daughter why it helps a queasy stomach. If I’d only asked my Mother!!!
