If you are overweight or obese, you’ve probably already heard about metabolic syndrome, a set of symptoms that ups your risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases. Paring off pounds can improve your health, and now a team of researchers in China has shown that adding ginger to your diet may help you.
A review of the paper, published in May 2017 in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, notes that recent epidemiological and clinical studies have built a consensus that ginger has beneficial effects against obesity and related disorders.
The pungent spice with with the scientific name Zingiber officinale Roscoe has these effects by:
- regulating fat metabolism
- suppressing carbohydrate digestion
- modulating insulin secretion and response
- inhibiting oxidative stress
- lowering blood pressure
- lowering cholesterol.
Studies have also identified the mechanisms and cellular molecules involved.
