Ginger for treating nausea and vomiting: an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Abstract

Ginger may be a potential remedy for nausea and vomiting. This review aimed to assess the reporting and methodological quality, and integrate the evidence in this field. A total of fifteen meta-analyses were analysed and met the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2009 guidelines, providing a relatively complete statement. However, methodological quality, assessed using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews-2 checklist, was deemed critically low to low. Our review’s findings support ginger’s effectiveness in managing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in cancer patients. It also reduces postoperative nausea and vomiting severity, decreasing the need for rescue antiemetics. Furthermore, ginger shows promise in alleviating pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting symptoms. The pooled evidence suggests ginger as a safe botanical option for managing nausea and vomiting, but it is important to improve the scientific quality of published meta-analyses in the future.

Keywords:

• Ginger
• nausea
• vomiting
• meta-analysis

Author contributions

All authors participated in the design and implementation of this study. ZY-L designed the study and wrote the manuscript. JW, and JJ-S carried out literature search and data extraction. ZY-L and YD-W analysed and interpreted the data. All authors revised the manuscript and agreed to publish. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Ethics approval

This review did not address medical ethics because subject participation was not required.

Patient consent statement

No patients were directly involved in this study.

Supplementary materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded by Table S1: PRISMA 2009 statement of this review; Table S2: Electronic Database Search Strategies; Table S3: Results of the PRISMA 2009 statement; Table S4: Results of methodological quality; Table S5: GRADE profile of ginger for nausea and vomiting.

Data availability statement

All data obtained or analysed during this work were included within the article.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is supported by the Scientific and Technological Innovation Project of China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences (CI2021A01005).