Effects of supplementation with ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe) on Serum glucose, lipid profile and oxidative stress in obese women: A randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial

Background: The hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic and antioxidative effects of ginger in type 2 diabetic patients have been recently noticed. However given the very limited data on obesity, the present study was furthered to investigate those beneficial effects of ginger supplementation in obese women. Methods: In this clinical trial, 80 eligible obese women (aged 18-45 yr.) were randomly divided into two groups of ginger (receiving 2 g ginger powder as two 1g tablets per day) or placebo (corn starch to the same amount) for 12 weeks. Serum levels of glucose, lipid profile, malondialdehyde (MDA) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were determined before and after the intervention. Results: At the end of intervention, significant reductions of serum glucose, total cholesterol (TC), Triglyceride (TG), the TC/HDL.c and LDL.c/HDL.c ratios and increase of HDL.C were observed in both study groups. However, the decrease of serum TG was significantly (percent change: -20.51% vs. -4.92%; p=0.006) and the glucose reduction was non-significantly (percent change: -7.51% vs. -6.16%; p=0.669) more pronounced in the ginger group versus placebo. Moreover the concentration of MDA increased in ginger group (p=0.005) and TAC decreased in placebo group (p=0.029) as compared to the baseline without any significant difference between groups. Conclusion: Our findings revealed a minor beneficial effect of ginger powder supplementation on serum glucose and a moderate, significant effect on TG, as compared to the placebo. However ginger consumption did not cause any significant effect on serum MDA and TAC levels.