Score one for a traditional remedy. The Tracker personally abhors the taste of ginger (but ginger snaps and ginger ale taste fine), and thus sat up on reading on the AP wire a report from Marilynn Marchione that had some good news about ginger as a medicine. Capsules of ginger extract appear to appreciably reduce the nausea associated with chemotherapy. The results, from a Univ. of Rochester team, are in a report from the American Society of Clinical Oncology in advance of its annual meeting later this month.

 

Medical science tends to test, and then dismiss as a placebo at best, potions derived from natural plants and extolled by healers of various sort. But once in awhile an herbal remedy gets imprimatur. Foxglove yielded digitalis, aspirin's ancestry goes back to willow tree bark, morphine of course arose from poppy cultivation, taxol from yew trees, and quinine was born from the "fever tree."

People also have their hopes up for Cannabis and a fully legit anti-nausea drug untainted by marijuana hysteria. Marchione writes the news on ginger well, including a tincture of surprise - even by the researchers - that it did so well in initial trials. Herbal supplement companies already sell ginger extract for motion sickness (and a lot of other maladies - so many that a cynic might suggest they had to be right about something. Let's see if herb peddlers ever take one of its bruited uses OFF their list).

 

A tip to the story is the ASCO's guide to news at its annual meeting (see Grist below), and the organization held a press conference yesterday. Her story appears to handle the news in lively fashion without overdue hype of a substance that will likely need a good deal more work before it will get the FDA's endorsement.

 

Sorce: http://ksj.mit.edu

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