Eating ginger helps reduce muscle pain and soreness
Baku, March 17 (AZERTAC). Ginger`s ability to calm an upset stomach is well known. But more recently, scientists have wondered whether its soothing effects might extend to sore muscles. For centuries, ginger root has been used as a folk remedy for a variety of ailments such as colds and upset stomachs. But now, researchers at the University of Georgia have found that daily ginger consumption also reduces muscle pain caused by exercise.
Ginger, a member of the same plant family as turmeric, contains anti-inflammatory compounds and volatile oils — gingerols — that show analgesic and sedative effects in animal studies. So, last year a team of researchers looked at whether ginger might do the same in humans. In the study, published in The Journal of Pain in September 2010, scientists recruited 74 adults and had them do exercises meant to induce muscle pain and inflammation. Over 11 days, the subjects ate either two grams of ginger a day or a placebo. Ultimately, the ginger groups experienced roughly 25 per cent reductions in exercise-induced muscle pain 24 hours after a workout. While ginger had been shown to exert anti-inflammatory effects in rodents, its effect on experimentally-induced human muscle pain was largely unexplored, said Patrick O`Connor, a professor in the College of Education`s department of kinesiology. It was also believed that heating ginger, as occurs with cooking, might increase its pain-relieving effects. Participants in the studies, 34 and 40 volunteers, respectively, consumed capsules containing two grams of either raw or heat-treated ginger or a placebo for 11 consecutive days. On the eighth day they performed 18 extensions of the elbow flexors with a heavy weight to induce moderate muscle injury to the arm. Arm function, inflammation, pain and a biochemical involved in pain were assessed prior to and for three days after exercise.
In a similar double-blind study, scientists compared what happened when subjects consumed either two grams of ginger or a placebo one day and then two days after exercise. The ginger appeared to have no effect shortly after ingestion. But it was associated with less soreness the following day, leading the researchers to conclude that ginger may help “attenuate the day-to-day progression of muscle pain.” Other studies have shown that consuming ginger before exercise has no impact on muscle pain, oxygen consumption and other physiological variables during or immediately after a workout, suggesting that if ginger does have any benefits, they may be limited to reductions in soreness in the days after a workout.
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