Oral Glucose Tolerance Test with Cooked Rhizomes of Zingiber Officinale (Ginger)

Rhizomes of Zingiber officinale (ginger) are used as a spice in many culinary dishes of Bangladesh. Since a number of scientific reports are present on the beneficial effects of raw ginger in Type 2 diabetes mellitus, it was of interest to determine the anti-hyperglycemic efficacy of cooked (boiled) ginger through oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) in mice. The OGTT results showed that when administered at doses of 50, 100, 200 and 400 mg per kg body weight, methanolic extract of cooked ginger (MEZOC) reduced blood glucose in glucose-loaded mice by 8.0, 20.3, 29.2, and 32.0%, respectively. By comparison, a standard antihyperglycemic drug, glibenclamide, when administered at a dose of 10 mg per kg, reduced blood glucose levels by 48.8%. The results suggest that cooked ginger retains efficiency in lowering blood glucose. Since cooking causes ginger to be less pungent, partaking of ginger in such a manner may prove to be more acceptable to diabetic patients and help control their blood glucose concentrations.