The ginger that blocks cancer’s growth

Ginger is a powerful cancer fighter—by disrupting the way tumours get their energy.

Kencur, a type of ginger, blocks the major food source of cancer cells that gives them the fuel to grow and spread.

As the German physiologist Otto Warburg recognised more than a hundred years ago, tumours feed off sugars while healthy cells use oxygen.  Our cells oxidize glucose to produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate), an energy source necessary for life, but cancer cells produce ATP through glycolysis, which does not utilize oxygen even under conditions where oxygen is present, and converts glucose into pyruvic acid and lactic acid.

Kencur doesn’t attack cancer’s sugar supply directly but instead shuts down the cells’ fat-making machinery, which causes them to ramp up their need for sugar even more, researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan have discovered.

Cinnamic acid ester ethyl p-methoxycinnamate is kencur’s component that has cancer-fighting properties, the researchers found.  Kencur (Kaempferia galanga) is also known as aromatic ginger, sand ginger and cutcherry.

The discovery could open the doors to new and natural ways to combat cancer, they added.

What do you think? Start a conversation over on the... WDDTY Community