Ginger Supplements: Nausea Evidence, Forms and Side Effects

What is ginger?

Ginger is the rhizome, or underground stem, of Zingiber officinale. It is used fresh in food, dried as powder, brewed into tea and concentrated into extracts. Supplements are usually labeled in milligrams or grams; some also specify gingerols and shogaols, groups of pungent constituents.

People take ginger for nausea, joint pain and menstrual cramps. There is human research behind these uses, but the results vary: pregnancy nausea has a useful short-term signal, chemotherapy findings depend partly on when symptoms occur, and joint-pain evidence remains uncertain. Blood-sugar claims come from smaller, less consistent studies. Digestive research also distinguishes faster stomach emptying from relief of indigestion or irritable-bowel symptoms.

Traditional uses and modern preparations

Ginger’s digestive reputation comes from several traditions, with different preparations. The European Medicines Agency’s historical assessment^[1] describes Ayurvedic use of the rhizome and dried powder to promote digestion and relieve colic. Its account of Chinese medicine distinguishes fresh ginger used for abdominal distension, coughing and vomiting from steamed and dried rhizome used for abdominal pain and diarrhea, among other complaints.

Western medicinal accounts include digestive discomfort and chest complaints, with dried powder and alcoholic tinctures also documented for travel sickness and rheumatic complaints.

What people take ginger for

Claimed benefit	Dose / form studied	Research verdict	Evidence strength
Ease nausea in early pregnancy	Dried powder, including 1 g/day for four days; other oral preparations also studied	Short trials support nausea relief, with uncertainty about the size of the benefit.	Review pending
Reduce vomiting in pregnancy	Often the same short courses used in nausea studies	Individual results are favorable, but pooled vomiting findings are less consistent.	Review pending
Ease chemotherapy-related nausea	Oil-based extract at 0.5–1.5 g/day root-equivalent for six days; standardized root powder at 1.2 g/day for five days per cycle	Some trials improve acute or delayed symptoms; others are null.	Review pending
Prevent nausea or vomiting after surgery	Powder, often a single 0.5–1 g dose before surgery	Severity may improve modestly; prevention results conflict.	Review pending
Reduce knee-osteoarthritis pain	Oral extracts; preparations differ	An extract trial was null overall; the broader benefit remains uncertain.	Review pending
Ease primary menstrual cramps	1.5 g/day dried powder for three- or five-day courses in one placebo-controlled trial	Pain scores improved; uneven dropout limits confidence.	Review pending
Improve blood sugar in type 2 diabetes	One paper reports 2 g/day powder for 12 weeks; a separate trial used a 1.2-g/day preparation for 90 days	Positive small-trial findings have not been consistent, and one dose report needs clarification.	Review pending
Ease functional indigestion	A single 1.2-g powder dose; 480 mg/day steamed extract for 12 weeks in a separate trial	Faster emptying did not improve symptoms acutely; a longer extract trial reported symptom improvement.	Review pending
Ease irritable bowel syndrome	1 or 2 g/day for 28 days in a small trial	Neither amount outperformed placebo.	Review pending

When to ask a doctor before taking it

For chemotherapy or surgery, discuss ginger with the team managing your anti-nausea medicines. The trials below tested particular treatment schedules; taking a supplement before an operation also needs to fit the team's fasting and medication instructions.

Ask a pharmacist or prescriber about concentrated ginger if you take medicines that help prevent blood clots, including anticoagulants such as warfarin, or antiplatelets such as aspirin and clopidogrel. Clinical bleeding risk from concentrated supplements is not well quantified. Ordinary food amounts and concentrated products involve different amounts of ginger. ^[2]

Powder, extract, tea or candy?

Dried rhizome powder contains the dried plant material. Extracts concentrate selected constituents and may be standardized, meaning that a stated constituent amount is measured or targeted. Tea depends on how much ginger is used and how it is prepared. Candy and chews can contain substantial sugar and an unclear ginger amount.

What should you check on the label?

Find the actual ginger amount per full serving, whether it is powder or extract, and any stated gingerol or shogaol content. A dried-root-equivalent number describes starting plant weight, rather than the extract weight inside the capsule.

For a chew, check how many pieces provide the stated ginger amount. A front-label gram claim may describe several pieces rather than one. If a product combines ginger with other nausea-related ingredients, check each amount separately; the blend total does not reveal the ginger dose.

Drawbacks and side effects

Potential drawback	When/who it affects	Research evidence	Practical implication
Heartburn or abdominal discomfort	Oral supplement users, especially those prone to reflux	Recognized in NIH guidance^[2] and reported in trials	Stop or reconsider the preparation if symptoms worsen.
Diarrhea	Some supplemental users	Recognized in NIH guidance	Persistent diarrhea is a reason to stop and reassess.
Mouth or throat irritation	Direct oral exposure	Reported in NIH guidance	A stronger sensation does not indicate a better therapeutic dose.
Treatment-specific interactions	People taking medicines, including cancer regimens or anticoagulants	Interaction risk depends on the drug and preparation; a chemotherapy trial raised a possible interaction with the anti-nausea medicine aprepitant	Have the treating team review the combination before adding it.

New or persistent nausea should be assessed by its cause. Ginger can itself aggravate digestive symptoms, so increasing the amount is not a dependable response when nausea continues.

Ginger during pregnancy and breastfeeding

Ginger may help nausea in pregnancy, but women considering a supplement should discuss the preparation and symptom severity with their maternity clinician. Inability to keep fluids down, dehydration or weight loss needs assessment.

The pregnancy trials were mainly short symptom studies. Their small size makes uncommon pregnancy harms difficult to evaluate. NCCIH^[2] advises consultation before using ginger supplements during pregnancy and notes that little is known about supplement use while breastfeeding.

Agency advice differs. NIH says pregnancy use may be safe with clinician consultation. The European Medicines Agency’s assessment^[1] retains a precautionary preference to avoid medicinal ginger during pregnancy and does not recommend it while breastfeeding because safety data are insufficient. Its caution concerns medicinal preparations beyond normal food use.

What does the nausea research show?

Nausea is the feeling that you may vomit; vomiting is the event itself. Trials measure both, and an improvement in one can occur without a clear improvement in the other. The cause of the symptoms and the medicines used alongside ginger also shape the results.

Nausea relief is better supported than vomiting relief

The clearest practical signal is relief of nausea during early pregnancy. A 2014 review by Viljoen and colleagues^[3] found greater nausea improvement with ginger than placebo in the small set of trials that could be combined. The pooled vomiting-episode result was inconclusive. Differences in scoring systems and preparations made it difficult to combine the whole literature into one estimate.

A frequently cited trial by Vutyavanich and colleagues^[4] randomized 70 women before 17 weeks of pregnancy: 32 received ginger and 38 received placebo. The ginger group took 1 g/day of dried ginger powder, divided into four capsules, for four days. Among women followed up, nausea scores improved by about 2.1 points with ginger versus 0.9 with placebo on a 10-point scale. However, three placebo participants were missing. When the researchers assumed those women had improved substantially, the average four-day difference was no longer statistically clear; the day-four comparison remained favorable.

Vomiting also improved in that trial: 12 of 32 ginger recipients were still vomiting after four days, compared with 23 of 35 placebo recipients. That is a positive result from one small study alongside less consistent pooled vomiting evidence. For severe, persistent vomiting, hydration and pregnancy care remain the immediate priorities.

Chemotherapy: acute and delayed symptoms

Acute symptoms occur during the first 24 hours after chemotherapy; delayed symptoms occur later. Ginger trials have produced different results in those two periods.

In Ryan and colleagues' multicenter trial^[5], 744 patients were randomized and 576 provided evaluable treatment data. Participants already received anti-nausea medicines. They took an oil-based ginger extract providing 0.5, 1 or 1.5 g/day of ginger-root equivalent for six days, beginning three days before chemotherapy.

Across the ginger groups, acute nausea improved slightly more than with placebo: about 0.35 points for average nausea and 0.47 for worst nausea on a seven-point scale. The lower doses gave the more convincing results; 1.5 g did not clearly outperform placebo. Vomiting and quality of life did not improve significantly, and delayed nausea remained a problem.

A separate 162-patient trial by Zick and colleagues^[6] tested 1 or 2 g/day of a different ginger extract, beginning after chemotherapy and continuing for three days. It found no benefit for its main outcome, delayed nausea or vomiting. Some secondary analyses found worse delayed nausea, especially with the higher dose and among patients taking aprepitant. Those analyses raised a possible interaction concern rather than establishing its frequency or mechanism.

More recently, Crichton and colleagues' trial, published in 2024^[7], tested 1.2 g/day of standardized ginger-root powder containing 84 mg of gingerols and shogaols. The five-day course began on chemotherapy day and was repeated across three cycles. All 103 participants received anti-nausea medicines; 70 completed all three cycles, with missing data handled in the analysis.

That trial found better nausea-related quality of life and delayed nausea severity, with fewer cases of delayed vomiting in later cycles. It found no acute or anticipatory nausea/vomiting benefit. Anticipatory symptoms occur before a later chemotherapy session, after a patient has experienced chemotherapy before. Its encouraging delayed-symptom result adds something useful to the older acute-nausea finding, while the different preparation, schedule and substantial dropout leave the best regimen unsettled.

Nausea and vomiting after surgery

Postoperative trials are mixed even when ginger powder is given before surgery. In a 120-woman trial of major gynecologic surgery^[8], a single 1-g dose one hour beforehand reduced the proportion reporting nausea: 29 of 60 women with ginger versus 40 of 60 with placebo. Vomiting outcomes also favored ginger during the first postoperative day.

By contrast, Arfeen and colleagues^[9] found no benefit from 500 mg or 1 g of powder before gynecologic laparoscopy. Their analysis included 108 women and assessed the first three postoperative hours. Anesthesia and pain medicines differed from the positive trial, as did the operation and observation period.

A 2018 meta-analysis of ten trials^[10] found a small improvement in nausea/vomiting severity scores, but no statistically clear reduction in the incidence of nausea, vomiting or the need for rescue anti-nausea medicine. These findings do not establish ginger as a reliable way to prevent nausea or vomiting after surgery. Discuss any planned use with the team managing your operation and anti-nausea medicines.

Motion sickness

Agency conclusions on motion sickness differ. NCCIH^[2] says most studies have not found ginger helpful. The European Medicines Agency^[11] retains an indication for dried ginger powder to prevent travel-related nausea and vomiting in adults. However, its full assessment calls the older studies weak by current standards and explains that the indication was retained for regulatory consistency, with no new safety issue.

Does ginger help indigestion?

Functional dyspepsia means recurring upper-abdominal discomfort, such as fullness after eating or pain, without an identified structural cause. Ginger has been studied both for these symptoms and for how quickly the stomach empties. The two outcomes can differ.

In Hu and colleagues’ study^[12], 11 patients received 1.2 g of ginger-root powder or starch placebo on two separate days in randomized order. An hour later, they drank a low-calorie soup. The median time for half the meal to leave the stomach was 12.3 minutes after ginger versus 16.1 minutes after placebo. Yet fullness, bloating, nausea and abdominal discomfort did not improve compared with placebo. This was a single-dose experiment, and participants were not selected for abnormally slow emptying.

A 2023 uncontrolled study^[13] followed 51 patients who completed four weeks taking two 540-mg ginger capsules daily. Several symptoms improved from their starting levels, while heartburn did not improve significantly. Without a placebo group, the study cannot separate a ginger effect from expectations or symptoms changing over time.

A newer 2025 trial by Baek and colleagues^[14] randomized 80 participants with mild to moderate functional dyspepsia to 480 mg/day of steamed ginger extract, GGE03, or placebo for 12 weeks. The published abstract reports better overall digestive-symptom scores and several individual symptom scores with the extract. The full analysis and size of the benefit remain unreviewed here, so how much improvement patients experienced is still unclear.

These findings leave a preparation-specific possibility of symptom relief, alongside an acute powder study that improved emptying without relief. The trials did not directly compare powder with steamed extract or shorter with longer treatment.

Irritable bowel syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, involves abdominal pain with changes in bowel habits. It has a separate small trial: van Tilburg and colleagues^[15] randomized 45 adults to 1 g/day, 2 g/day or placebo for 28 days, while their IBS medicines remained stable.

Neither ginger group had a statistically clear advantage over placebo in the proportion reporting adequate relief or achieving the study’s threshold for symptom improvement. Scores improved within the 1-g group, but also within the placebo group. This small, short trial did not demonstrate an IBS benefit.

Arthritis benefits remain uncertain

Research on oral ginger for osteoarthritis remains uncertain. In Bliddal and colleagues' crossover trial^[16], participants tried ginger extract, ibuprofen and placebo in separate treatment periods. Ginger did not significantly beat placebo across the full study. A favorable finding appeared only in an exploratory analysis of the first treatment period.

NCCIH^[2] also finds that topical ginger has not been shown to help knee-osteoarthritis symptoms.

Small trials suggest less menstrual pain

Small trials suggest ginger can reduce primary dysmenorrhea, meaning menstrual cramps without an identified underlying pelvic disorder. In Rahnama and colleagues' placebo-controlled study^[17], students took 500 mg of dried powder three times daily during two menstrual cycles. One course started two days before menstruation and continued for its first three days; the other started when menstruation began and lasted three days.

The results tables included 105 students. During the five-day course, pain scores averaged 5.1 with ginger versus 6.6 with placebo on a 10-point scale; the three-day course also favored ginger. Pain duration improved significantly only with the five-day schedule.

Thirteen placebo participants dropped out, while the main tables retained all 59 ginger participants. That imbalance could make the benefit look larger. The schedules were also given in a fixed order across different cycles, so the study cannot establish that starting two days early is superior. The result is promising for cramps, with limited certainty about the best course and size of benefit.

Blood-sugar results are inconsistent

Ginger has produced favorable blood-sugar results in some small trials of adults with type 2 diabetes who continued their usual medication. The findings are inconsistent.

In Khandouzi and colleagues' 12-week trial^[18], 50 people were randomized and 41 completed the study. The paper reports 2 g/day of dried ginger powder. Fasting glucose fell by about 19 mg/dL, compared with a roughly 2 mg/dL increase on placebo. HbA1c, a measure of average blood glucose over recent months, fell by 0.77 percentage points, compared with essentially no change on placebo. Those comparisons favored ginger, but the analysis was small and excluded participants who did not complete treatment. A related report^[19] gives identical glucose and HbA1c changes while describing 3 g/day, leaving a dose-reporting discrepancy to resolve.

In a Brazilian trial with 103 completers^[20], 1.2 g/day of a ginger preparation for 90 days produced larger numerical falls in glucose than placebo. Yet the randomized between-group tests were not statistically significant for glucose, HbA1c or blood lipids. Its abstract sounds more positive because it emphasizes improvement rather than the uncertainty in the group comparison.

These are studies of glucose measurements during ongoing diabetes treatment. They leave uncertainty about whether adding ginger provides a dependable extra benefit. Medication decisions should stay with the clinician managing your diabetes.

The bottom line

Ginger has useful short-term research for pregnancy nausea and promising findings for menstrual cramps. Chemotherapy studies now include both acute- and delayed-symptom benefits, alongside null trials. Surgical nausea, osteoarthritis and metabolic findings are less consistent. For indigestion, faster emptying did not itself produce symptom relief; a longer steamed-extract trial reported a benefit that still needs fuller assessment. The small IBS trial was null.

The most informative label details are powder versus extract, the full serving amount and any other active ingredients. For pregnancy, chemotherapy, surgery or medicine combinations, the specific clinical setting matters as much as the ginger product.

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