Ginger Root

📜 Historical Use

Ginger is native to the warm parts of Asia and is now grown in parts of South America, Africa and the Middle East, where its rhizome is used in food and for health purposes. It has been used in folk medicine since ancient times, traditionally for a range of conditions including asthma, flu, indigestion and gastrointestinal discomfort. Within Asian medicine specifically, NCCIH records its historical use for stomach aches, nausea and diarrhea — a digestive focus that has carried through to the present far more faithfully than most traditional indications do. Today ginger is promoted for nausea and vomiting, osteoarthritis, menstrual cramps and other conditions, and it also appears in the folk and traditional repertoire for post-surgical nausea, chemotherapy-induced nausea, pregnancy nausea, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and joint and muscle pain. The overlap between the ancient uses and the modern claims is unusually close for a herbal remedy, which is part of why ginger is so widely trusted; it is not, by itself, evidence that the claims hold.

📊 What the Research Shows

The honest summary diverges from the marketing on the single use ginger is best known for. On motion sickness, NCCIH's fact sheet states that most studies of ginger for motion sickness have not shown it to be helpful; its travel digest puts it slightly more generously, saying evidence from some laboratory and clinical studies has suggested ginger might help with motion sickness, but other studies have not found a beneficial effect. Either way, this is the weakest-supported of its popular uses, not the strongest. The better-supported use is pregnancy: research shows ginger may be helpful for nausea and vomiting associated with pregnancy. Research also suggests ginger supplements might be helpful for reducing the severity of menstrual cramps. For chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and for nausea and vomiting after surgery, NCCIH says it is uncertain whether ginger helps. On joints and muscles the picture is weak and specific: supplements might help symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, but much of that research has been of poor quality, and a 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis of seven trials found insufficient evidence to support oral ginger over placebo for pain relief and function in knee osteoarthritis. NCCIH states plainly that it is unclear whether ginger supplementation benefits rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, or joint and muscle pain. A 2019 review of dietary ingredients for chronic musculoskeletal pain made a conditional recommendation for ginger, with the caveat that benefits and downsides were closely balanced or the evidence low quality. One 2010 study in 74 participants found daily raw and heat-treated ginger produced moderate-to-large reductions in muscle pain after exercise-induced muscle injury.

Chew fresh ginger slice, or drink ginger tea. Take 30 min before travel for motion sickness.

Limit to 1g/day during pregnancy. May cause heartburn in high doses.

⚠️ What happens if taken in excess:

Ginger has no serious safety signal in the sources reviewed here — no liver injury, cardiac or neurological warning of the kind that dominates the safety sections of some other herbs on this site. NCCIH states that ginger has been used safely in many research studies where it was taken orally as a dietary supplement, and that ginger products may also be safe for topical use. Few adverse reactions are linked to ginger when taken in small doses. What is reported is gastrointestinal and mild: abdominal discomfort, heartburn, diarrhea, and mouth and throat irritation when taken by mouth, and gas, bloating, heartburn and nausea — those most often associated with powdered ginger. The pregnancy position is worth quoting precisely rather than rounding off, because it is routinely overstated in both directions: NCCIH says the use of ginger dietary supplements during pregnancy may be safe, and adds that as with all herbal supplements, anyone considering ginger while pregnant should consult their health care provider. Little is known about whether it is safe to use ginger while breastfeeding. One structural caution applies to every ginger supplement on the shelf: dietary supplements are not approved by the FDA before they are sold, and the rules for making and distributing them are less strict than those for drugs, so what is in the bottle is the manufacturer's responsibility rather than a verified fact.

NCCIH is unusually hedged here, and the hedge is the useful part. Its travel digest states that research has not definitively shown whether ginger interacts with medications, but that concerns have been raised that it could interact with anticoagulants. That is a raised concern rather than a documented interaction, and it is the only drug class NCCIH names in connection with ginger. The second named-drug statement is an explicit gap rather than a warning: the effect of using ginger supplements together with common over-the-counter motion sickness drugs — NCCIH names dimenhydrinate, sold as Dramamine — is unknown. Which is a pointed omission, because taking ginger alongside Dramamine for a long journey is exactly what a reader of a motion sickness page is likely to do. Beyond those two statements, NCCIH's general advice applies: if you take any type of medicine, talk with your health care provider before using ginger, because some herbs and medicines interact in harmful ways. Worth noting what is absent: ginger does not appear anywhere in NCCIH's "Know the Science" module on medication-supplement interactions, which names St. John's wort, goldenseal, green tea, ashwagandha, black cohosh, glucosamine, kratom and CBD. Absence of a documented interaction is not the same as demonstrated safety alongside a prescription.

1. The effect of ginger on serotonin induced hypothermia and diarrhea — Huang QR et al Yakugaku Zasshi (1990)[PubMed ↗]
2. Anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of ginger in health and physical activity — Mashhadi NS et al Int J Prev Med (2013)[PubMed ↗]
3. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effect of ginger on nausea and vomiting of pregnancy — Viljoen E et al Nutr J (2014)[PubMed ↗]