Ginger tea for colds: What the tuber really does

Even though it doesn’t come from our latitudes, but from Asia, ginger is popular in this country, as an ingredient in the kitchen and as a home remedy. Ginger tea is not only available in Asian restaurants, but also as an alternative to peppermint etc. in many cafés. Perhaps ginger is so familiar to us because it found its way to Europe back in Roman times. And it established itself there early on in the culinary world, for example as ginger ale or gingerbread.

In folk medicine, ginger is used for colds, coughs, runny nose and hoarseness. But is this scientifically proven? Or at least plausible?

Ginger as a digestive plant

First of all: In “official” herbal medicine, i.e. the plant portraits of the responsible commissions and professional societies that review medicinal plants and define their effectiveness and application, ginger is primarily described as a plant that has an effect on the digestive tract. Ginger stimulates the production of saliva and gastric juice, increases the tone in the digestive tract and promotes peristalsis, i.e. the muscle contraction of the intestine, so that the chyme is moved forward.

Ginger is a digestive plant, for which gastrointestinal complaints are listed in the currently valid descriptions of the areas of application. Above all is ginger the Plant for nausea, such as motion sickness or seasickness. Ginger is now also used for nausea after minor operations with anesthesia, nausea during some chemotherapy treatments for cancer or nausea in the first trimester of pregnancy, but here it is more likely in the form of a tea mixture (i.e. in low doses) and please after consultation with the treating doctor.

Does ginger tea work against colds?

And the ginger tea that we like to brew for colds, coughs, hoarseness and runny nose? How does he fit into the picture?

To understand why ginger is used for colds, it is worth taking a quick look at the history of medicine and the pre-scientific image of sick people and medicinal plants. Here – and interestingly not only in Europe, but also in China and in the Indian healing art of Ayurveda – an excess of cold or heat, moisture or dryness was seen as the cause of an illness. Medicinal plants were also categorized according to whether they warm or cool, moisten or dry. The rest is a simple calculation: in the case of an illness caused by drought, moistening was used, and in the case of an illness caused by too much heat, cooling was used.

The ginger is considered warming in all of these old models. And is used accordingly for “cold illnesses”. In the case of the common cold, this seems to be clear, as the cold is already in the name of the disease. But according to historical models, this is not necessarily correct. Because whether a cold or a flu-like infection is associated with too much cold or not also depends on the symptoms in these historical concepts, which are still used in complementary medicine today: The runny nose is associated with too much cold and moisture characterized more by a feeling of cold, swollen, pale mucous membranes and a runny nose. The cold with feeling of soreness, dry, red mucous membranes, feeling of heat and fever is more associated with heat and dryness.

Against this background, ginger is particularly suitable for a cold when the cold runs through your limbs and you need your metabolism and blood circulation to get going. But if there is already a lot of heat in the organism, the throat is red and sore, if the ginger burns in the throat, then if you have a cold or flu-like infection you would rather avoid it and choose a milder plant.

So much for the “old view”. And what does modern phytopharmacology say about ginger for colds? This modern, scientific look always focuses on the groups of active ingredients: Ginger is one of the spicy drugs, as are chili or pepper. Hot substances can actually bind to thermoreceptors on the skin and mucous membranes, thereby providing a warming feeling or increasing blood circulation. What is also interesting when it comes to colds is that ginger had an antiviral effect in laboratory tests.

A conclusion

Now in winter, ginger is an excellent plant to counteract a general feeling of cold or the onset of a cold and to provide more warmth from the inside and boost metabolism, which also benefits the immune system. How much the ginger warms can also be measured with the “ginger tea”: A slice of ginger in a glass of water is a mild stimulus, more like ginger water. The smaller the ginger is cut or even crushed, the hotter it is prepared, the longer it is steeped, the hotter it is. And whether it is used dried or fresh is also important. A ginger potion in which fresh ginger root is chopped and crushed and then simmered on the stove is significantly more effective.

But sometimes it doesn’t have to be such a strong stimulus: a mild ginger tea can warm you up as a preventive measure. A piece of ginger in the chicken soup increases its effect. Ginger confectionery with a dark chocolate coating is a wonderful gift for seniors and the very old, who are known to get cold a little quicker. Or for friends whose menstrual cramps are accompanied by a feeling of cold. And last but not least, ginger helps through stressful periods when emotional coldness wants to spread from within.