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| Ginger, photo from https://www.edisoninst.com |
Ginger is a root commonly used in Filipino homes to add flavor and aroma to your arroz caldo or tinola. But apart from giving off that heavenly smell, one research in 2015 found that a certain compound in your favorite flavoring could be up to 10,000 times more effective in treating cancer stem cells compared to chemotherapy and radiation.
The root of all evil
Cancer stem cells are the hardest to track and treat because stem cells are the ones that produce the cells that get dispatched throughout the body and cause the tumor colony to grow further. If the cancer is not treated from the source, there’s a greater risk of it relapsing.
There lies the problem that the conventional cancer therapy we use nowadays show only a slight chance to kill these cells because they don’t have the ability to kill it where it came from.
The ginger therapy
6-shogaol, the pungent component found in ginger, is the one that was highlighted in the study. Researchers found this component to be far more superior than the chemotherapy treatment we've been using on cancer patients for decades.
In simpler terms, 6-shagoal has the ability to kill cancer cells more effectively because it can destroy the cancer cells as well as the tumors without killing the healthy cells surrounding them. This means there’s a lesser chance of relapsing and far fewer side effects if this treatment is used as a substitute to radiation and chemotherapy.
The future of cancer therapy
The authors of the study are hopeful that this study will advance further. In their closing statement, the researchers acknowledged dietary compounds as “welcome options for [treating] human diseases due to their time-tested acceptability by human bodies.”
This goes to show that the natural substances that we have been eating and taking for thousands of years have better chances of effectively targeting cancer cells from its core than any chemotherapy or radiation ever could.
Source: Food Revolution, WebMD
