Treating Ovarian Cancer With Ginger

Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, are currently investigating ginger as a treatment for ovarian cancer. Ginger is already known to be effective at controlling inflammation, and inflammation contributes to the development of ovarian cancer cells. The researcher’s suspect that by halting the inflammatory reaction, ginger could also stop cancer cells from growing. Laboratory studies have shown that ginger caused ovarian cancer cells to die. The way in which the cells died suggests the use of ginger may eliminate the problem of the cells becoming resistant to standard treatments.

Using a standardized research grade ginger powder dissolved in solution, the researchers applied ginger to ovarian cancer cell cultures. The ginger caused two types of cell death—apoptosis and autophagy, in which cells digest themselves— in all the ovarian cancer cell lines tested. "In multiple ovarian cancer cell lines, we found that ginger induced cell death at a similar or better rate than the platinum based chemotherapy drugs typically used to treat ovarian cancer," says Jennifer Rhode, MD, a gynecologic oncology fellow at the University of Michigan Medical School. While the study results are still very preliminary, the researchers, who presented their finding at the poster session at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, plan to test whether they can obtain similar results in animal studies. The advantage of using ginger to treat ovarian cancer is that it could be administered in capsule form with virtually no side effects.