This column writer recently had a severe attack of very bad cold and cough, and no amount of swallowing antibiotics and vitamin C helped. His wife, Shakti, then recalled her mother’s traditional treatment, ground up a little jaggery and raw ginger, and asked him to have it three times a day. Lo and behold, the cough and cold disappeared within a day or two! Looking back to see which of the two - jaggery or ginger - did the trick, the writer looked up at modern scientific literature, from where it was seen that the Chinese have a similar traditional medication, called Ge Gen Tang. This too has ginger and a sweet herb (kudzu roots) in it, and has been used for years to fight common cold and a variety of other conditions.
That ginger has remarkable medicinal properties has been well known and studied by many groups, particularly from India, China, Pakistan and Iran. That it has dozens of drug molecules has also been reported. A review way back in 1994 by Dr. C V Denyer and coworkers ( J. Natural Products, 57(5), 658-662, 1994) listed as many as 12 major studies on the medicinal properties of ginger. Some of these point to its anti-oxidative properties, some show it to have anti-inflammatory effects, some to its ability to treat nausea, a few to its anti-emetic ability, and there is even a paper from the West Asian region suggesting that it may have a beneficial effect against dementia and Alzheimer’s. And a group of Iranian researchers from Isfahan have reviewed the current evidence on several properties of ginger in health and physical activity ( Intl. J. Prev. Med. 2013 Apr. 4 (Suppl 1):S36-S42), including its anti-cancer properties.
Anti-cancer components
Remarkably, several studies highlight its anti-cancer properties. Dr. Yogeshwer Shukla and Dr. M. Singh from the Industrial Toxicology Research Centre (now renamed as The Indian Institute of Toxicology Research), Lucknow have published a brief review on the cancer-preventive properties of ginger ( Food Chem.Toxicol. 2007; 45: 683-90), which has suggested that the components 6-gingerol and 6-paradol might be the active molecules here. And a 2011 review by Dr. A M Bode and Dr. Z Dong, in the book ‘The Amazing and Mighty Ginger- Herbal Medicine’ lists at least 115 constituents in fresh and dried ginger, the major active principles being the gingerols and their derivatives. And a recent paper from Shanghai suggests that ginger enhances the antitumor activity of the anti-cancer compound 5-fluorouracil, and have suggested a possible mechanism for this (Liu et al, Cell Commun. Signal 2018; 16:7).
It is apparent from the above that ginger is a veritable treasure trove of medicines. But, getting back to our cold and cough, how does ginger help? The lead paper by Jung San Chang and others from Taiwan, published in 2013 ( Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2013; 145: 146-151) offers some information. They point out that fresh ginger has anti-viral activity; in other words, it can also fight viruses. Common cold is known to be caused by viral infection (and that is why the conventional antibiotics do not work here), and two viruses are identified to be the causative agents. One of them is the human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV). Chang and group studied the effect of fresh ginger on cell lines containing HRSV, and showed that ginger stimulates mucosal cells to secrete a compound that counteracts viral infection. That ginger has compounds that are effective against various viruses has been suspected, and the present work adds to it by showing that ginger stimulates anti-viral molecules in the cell (called anti-viral cytokines) to fight HRSV. Earlier work by Denyer and coworkers ( J. Nat. Prod. 1994, 57:658-62) had shown that ginger has a molecule called beta-sesquiphellandrene which fights and overcomes the virus causing common cold.
In the current era of looking for better and more effective anti-bacterials and anti-viral compounds from natural sources, turning to traditional medicines, confirming their efficacy using today’s methods and understanding them had become a buzzing field. China has taken a great lead in this field and a full- fledged School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs is operating at the Peking University, Beijing. It is particularly important that India does not lag behind, and encourages and promotes such activities through adequate funding and career-encouragement.
Tradition and today
India has a full-fledged ministry called AYUSH which supports research, clinical trials and related matters in ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha and homeopathy. While this is a welcome move, we need the practitioners and researchers in these areas (largely traditional) to work closely with organic and pharmaceutical scientists (who use today’s methods and technologies), so that the maximum benefit may be had. Recall how earlier organic chemists and pharmacologists (Saleemuzzman Siddiqui, T.R. Seshadri, K. Venkataraman, T.R. Govindachari, Asima Chatterjee, Nitya Nand - just to name some) had worked in close collaboration with botanists and traditional healers. If the Ministry of AYUSH teams up with the relevant arms of the Ministry of Science and Technology (such as DST, DBT, SERM), the Ministry of Health (ICMR, DHR) and the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers (Dept of Pharmaceuticals), much advancement in a relatively short time can be had. After all, India has just as rich a tradition of traditional medicine, and a group of well equipped laboratories (as China) for such a pan-Indian, pan-ministerial collaboration to occur and pluck both low- hanging fruits and those at higher branches. For starters, we can initiate an immediate programme of looking for anti-virals from natural sources, just as the Chinese in Taiwan and Beijing have done.
Last, what does the jaggery do? People believe that it is to make the pungent ginger more edible. By itself, it is known to have 15-35% less sucrose that refined white sugar, much more minerals (Ca, Mg and Fe), and is thought to be good at fighting flu-like symptoms. Sadly though, not much research has been reported on the biochemical and pharmacological aspects of jaggery. Here then is another exciting research topic waiting to be studied.
dbala@lvpei.org
