These numbers are not only scary, but unacceptable in a day and age when known preventatives are available. In a 2007 study published in the BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, ginger was shown to not only inhibit the growth of ovarian cancer cells but to also modulate the secretion of angiogenic factors in these cells.
What this means is that ginger can stop cancer tumors cells from stimulating nearby normal cells from creating new blood vessels that “feed” growing tumors with oxygen and nutrients, which allows these cells to invade nearby tissue, and to move throughout the body to form new colonies of cancer cells—metastases. (14)
Other studies show that a daily dose of ginger may reduce inflammation in the colon and ultimately help reduce the risk of colon cancer. One study in particular showed that people who took ginger supplements had a 28 percent decrease in colorectal inflammation, a key risk factor for developing this type of cancer. (15)
Ginger inhibits growth and modulates secretion of angiogenic factors in ovarian cancer cells. The use of dietary agents such as ginger may have potential in the treatment and prevention of ovarian cancer.
One of the primary reasons that ginger is so effective against these hard-to-treat cancers is that while cancer stem cells only constitute up .2 to 1 percent of the entire cellular makeup of any tumor, these cells can be extremely difficult to kill.
This fact is significant because unless the stem cells are completely destroyed, they can and will eventually create more cancer cells that can travel throughout the body (metastasize). Ginger is able to target the root cause of cancer—the cancerous stem cells.
What researchers also found is that ginger can help prevent a number of toxic effects caused by other substances, including cancer drugs. As such, according to researchers, ginger is not only a useful treatment option on its own, but it may also be useful in conjunction with conventional cancer treatments.
One of the other issues with conventional chemotherapy drugs is that apart from suppressing the inflammatory markers of the cancerous cells, these harsh treatments can also cause cancer cells to become resistant to the effects of the very therapeutic drugs needed to kill these cells.
But a study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan revealed that ginger may be especially beneficial because the cancer cells that were exposed to ginger in this study did not in fact, become resistant to ginger’s cancer-destroying effects. (16)
Some might even say that ginger is the Holy Grail of anti-cancer agents. It not only prevents and treats the hard to kill cancers but it assures it will continue to work without the often deadly side effects of traditional cancer treatments like chemotherapy.