Ginger is recognized as a valuable therapeutic and non-pharmacological intervention. Given its widespread use, clarifying its efficacy in modulating metabolic profiles is essential. This umbrella review evaluated the available evidence on the effectiveness of ginger in improving metabolic parameters. A comprehensive systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, Google Scholar up to January 2025 to identify systematic reviews and meta-analyses assessing ginger‐related metabolic health outcomes. Extracted data included the number of studies, sample size, participants’ mean age, dosage and duration of ginger administration, and effect sizes of reported outcomes. The methodological quality of included studies was appraised using the AMSTAR‐2 tool. A total of 36 publications, encompassing 296 trials and 43,570 participants, were included. Ginger supplementation was consistently associated with significant reductions in C-reactive protein (range of reported WMD: − 0.42 to − 1.00 mg/L) and interleukin‐6 (range of reported WMD: − 0.45 to − 2.26 pg/mL) across all included meta‐analyses. Likewise, measures of oxidative stress and antioxidant status; including malondialdehyde, glutathione peroxidase, and total antioxidant capacity showed significant improvement. Most meta‐analyses also reported favorable effects on lipid profiles triglycerides (range of reported WMD: − 0.61 to − 24.80 mg/dL), total cholesterol (range of reported WMD: − 0.33 to − 13.31 mg/dL), and LDL-C (range of reported WMD: − 0.30 to − 11.22 mg/dL), though results for high‐density lipoprotein were limited. In addition, fasting blood sugar (range of reported WMD: − 0.68 to − 18.81 mg/dL) and HbA1c (range of reported WMD: − 0.27 to − 1.66%), HOMA-IR (range of reported WMD: − 0.54 to − 1.67) and insulin (range of reported WMD: − 0.54 to − 1.69) improved significantly in most meta‐analyses. Overall, this umbrella review demonstrates that ginger supplementation yields clinically relevant benefits across a range of health outcomes, particularly in reducing inflammation, improving glycemic and lipid profiles, and supporting weight management.
Musazadeh et al. (Sun,) studied this question.