Keep ginger handy as a medicinal and culinary herb. Ginger, with its strong flavor, gives flavor to Asian and Indian dishes. It has a long history as a safe, healing plant. Recent research suggests ginger may help reduce pain. Use fresh ginger if possible, for greater potency. You can add it to drinks, stir-fried food, soups or make it into a tea. You can also try essential oil of ginger in an aromatherapy diffuser.
Common Ginger
The ginger commonly found in your local supermarket is Zingiber officinale. Ginger is a light-brown root, or rhizome. You peel the skin off and use the slightly fibrous inside. Ginger is a folk remedy for pain, colds and motion sickness. Ginger also has anti-inflammatory properties, note Vadim Dedov and colleagues in the November 2002 issue of the "British Journal of Pharmacology."
Pinecone Ginger
Pinecone ginger, a relative of common ginger, is a traditional Hawaiian remedy for headaches. An article in "Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine" in March 2011 reviewed the medicinal effects of pincone ginger, also known as Zingiber zerumbet. This plant grows in parts of the Pacific and Asia. It contains the chemical zerumbone. Experiments on this plant indicate it has anti-inflammatory properties and may help reduce your headache pain.
Stress Headaches
Tension or stress headaches result in moderate pain, usually on both sides of your head. Elizabeth Loder of the Division of Headache and Pain and Harvard Medical School in Boston and Paul Rizzoli of the Graham Headache Center in Boston state that this type of headache is likely from overstimulated nerve cells in muscles near your head. There could be a genetic predisposition and stress can make matters worse. However, the cause of these headaches is not certain.
Gingerols
Gingerols are the chemicals in common ginger responsible for its medicinal effects. According to Dedov and colleagues, gingerols affect a particular pain receptor known as VR1. They are agonists of this receptor, which means they stimulate VR1 neurons. Dedov notes there are many VR1 receptors in your brain stem. This might explain why ginger helps relieve nausea, Dedov notes. Thus, there is a sound physiological basis for suggesting ginger could help headaches as well. So the next time you are suffering from a stress headache, give ginger a try.
References
- "Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine"; Zingiber zerumbet (L.) Smith: A Review of Its Ethnomedicinal, Chemical and Pharmacological Uses; N. J. Yob et al.; March 2011
- "British Journal of Pharmacology"; Gingerols: A Novel Class of Vanilloid Receptor (VR1): Agonists; Vadim N Dedov et al.; November 2002
- "British Medical Journal"; Tension-Type Headache; Elizabeth Loder and Paul Rizzoli; January 2008
