Add ginger to your food to boost calorie burning

Study

The researchers did an experiment with 10 men in their late thirties. They had an average BMI of 27, so were a little overweight. The researchers gave the men a breakfast of muffins and orange juice on two occasions. The breakfast contained 595 calories, of which 85 g were carbohydrates, 25 g fat and 7 g protein.

On one occasion the men drank a glass of hot water with their breakfast, on the other occasion the researchers had dissolved 2 g powdered ginger in the water. The powder wasn't an extract of the sort you find in supplements. It was ordinary McCormick's ginger powder, like the stuff you can buy in the supermarket.

Results

Six hours after the breakfast the researchers measured the men's energy expenditure. The figure below shows that the men burned more energy after the ginger breakfast.

After each meal, energy expenditure rises, but the increase was 43 kcal more after the men had consumed the ginger. If you did this every day – according to a simple calculation, which you aren't really supposed to do on the basis of an experiment like this – you could lose 2 kg in a year.









The powdered ginger also increased the feeling of satiety after the meal, according to the answers the subjects gave to a questionnaire they had to complete. The black bars show the scores after the ginger breakfast.

The researchers are not quite sure how ginger works. They examined the subjects' blood, but found no significant effects on the concentrations of insulin, glucose, TNF-alpha, CRP, interleukine-6, leptin, PYY, adiponectin, GLP-1 or active ghrelin.

Conclusion

Nevertheless, the researchers conclude: "From a public health perspective, due to the increase in the thermic effect of food observed in this study, the use of ginger may have relevance for weight management. Moreover, effects may be increased with daily consumption."

Source:

Metabolism. 2012 Apr 24. [Epub ahead of print].

More:

Ginger – prostate cancer inhibitor 07.10.2011

Ginger doubles testosterone levels in rats 08.09.2010

Two grams ginger reduces muscle soreness by a quarter 19.06.2010



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