A federally funded US study has found that people who started taking ginger capsules several days before a chemotherapy infusion had fewer and less severe bouts of nausea afterward than others who were given dummy capsules.
Study leader Julie Ryan of the University of Rochester in New York said: "We were slightly beside ourselves" to see how much it helped, said.
Results were released Thursday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and will be presented at the group's annual meeting later this month.
But don't reach for the ginger ale. Ryan said many sodas and cookies contain only flavouring - not real ginger. Her study tested a drug-like ginger root extract, and it's not known if people could get the same benefits from ginger teas or the powdered ginger sold as a spice.
AP