The effects of ginger intake on weight loss and metabolic profiles among overweight and obese subjects: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

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Why is it important?

Obesity is a growing problem worldwide. There are limited effective safe drugs for treatment of obesity . Ginger has been proposed in traditional medicine for treating obesity . There are contradictory reports on its effect on weight loss. In this meta analysis and systematic review we showed that the supplementation with ginger significantly decreased body weight (BW) (SMD -0.66; 95% CI, -1.31, -0.01; P = 0.04), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (SMD -0.49; 95% CI, -0.82, -0.17; P = 0.003), hip ratio (HR) (SMD -0.42; 95% CI, -0.77, -0.08; P = 0.01), fasting glucose (SMD -0.68; 95% CI, -1.23, -0.05; P = 0.03) and insulin resistance index (HOMA-IR) (SMD -1.67; 95% CI, -2.86, -0.48; P = 0.006), and significantly increased HDL-cholesterol levels (SMD 0.40; 95% CI, 0.10, 0.70; P = 0.009). We found no detrimental effect of ginger on body mass index , triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol . Overall, the current meta-analysis revealed that ginger intake reduced BW, WHR, HR, fasting glucose and HOMA-IR, and increased HDL-cholesterol, but did not affect insulin, BMI, triglycerides, total- and LDL-cholesterol levels.

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