Even when ginger might not be the most common ingredient to your diet, adding this delicious and healthy spice can come with several health benefits that can’t be left aside. Ginger is full of nutrients and bioactive components that result in improving your health and enrichening your daily diet. These are some of the benefits that come from adding ginger to our regular diet.
For many years, ginger has a long history of medicinal use, in both traditional and alternative medicine, and it has been used for ages as a natural way to help with digestion, reduce nausea, and fight common colds and cases of the flue. This is because of its natural oils, which include gingerol, the most important component of ginger. Gingerol is a bioactive compound that works as a powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, making ginger an excellent ingredient in natural medicine.
Because of its anti-inflammatory properties, ginger has been used to help reduce pain caused by osteoarthritis, a very common health problem. Osteoarthritis causes a degeneration of the joints, and it results in joint pain and overall stiffness. However, studies have shown that ginger extract can help reduce joint pain and even reduce the amount of medication needed to reduce osteoarthritis pain.
Among the many benefits that come from ginger, treating chronic indigestion is one of the most popular ones, and many people use it to help them deal with this condition. Chronic indigestion, also known as dyspepsia, usually comes with recurrent pain and discomfort in the upper part of the stomach. However, ginger has been shown to improve the digestion process by speeding up the emptying of the stomach. Since delayed emptying of the stomach is one of the main caused of indigestion, using ginger to speed up the process can help us digest faster, thus relieving the pain we might experience.
Last but not least, because of its pain relief properties, ginger has also been used as a natural remedy to reduce menstrual pain. Also known as dysmenorrhea, menstrual pain affects women with a varying degree of pain yet causing significant discomfort during their menstrual cycle. However, one study that included 150 women as participants discovered that 1 gram of ginger powder can reduce menstrual pain just as effectively as ibuprofen and mefenamic acid.
