Including ginger in your morning meal could help curb hunger and potentially play a role in overall weight management, suggests a new study published in Metabolism. For overweight men, a morning ginger drink was linked to lower prospective food intake later in the day and reduced hunger.
Researchers at Columbia University and the New York Obesity Research Center gave 10 healthy but overweight men a standard breakfast accompanied by a ginger “tea” with 2 grams of dried ginger powder (equivalent to about 1 teaspoon) or the same breakfast with plain hot water on two separate days.
The researchers documented feelings of hunger immediately before and hourly after breakfast consumption, the calories burned after eating (thermic effect of food) as well as other measures. They found approximately 43 more calories were burned after eating but total resting energy expenditure and respiratory quotient were not significantly affected. There were also no ginger-related effects on blood glucose, insulin, triglycerides or a variety of other metabolic parameters.
