Food Facts

Ginger Relieves Screen-Induced Eye Tiredness and Shoulder Stiffness

• By Rich Health News Desk
• November 02, 2024

Long-term use of cell phones, tablets, e-readers, laptops, desktop computers, video display units, and other similar devices has not been shown to hurt the eyes in any way. But too much time in front of a computer can hurt your eyes and shoulders.

 

Don't worry—a report from scientists at Hiroshima University says that taking ginger supplements may help ease the tired eyes and stiff shoulders that come from staring at a screen for too long. It helps because it makes blood move better.

 

VDT syndrome is one of many health problems that can happen when you use screens or VDTs (visual display terminals) for a long time, like computers, smartphones, and tablets. It could make your eyes tired and dry, and it could make your neck and shoulders stiff. This situation has a big effect on a person's quality of life and has turned into a major social problem that needs to be fixed.

 

A new study from Japan found that younger women who took 100 mg of ginger extract powder E (Ikeda Food Research) every day for eight weeks had big changes in their eye fatigue and stiff shoulders.

 

According to a new paper released in Nutrients, the researchers looked into whether giving people with VDTs daily supplements of a ginger extract could help them in any way because ginger can improve blood flow.

 

100 healthy men and women between the ages of 20 and 73 who had shoulder pain and tired eyes were asked to take part in the parallel, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled research.

 

They were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo or the ginger extract (100 mg, of which 2 mg was 6-shogaol and 0.5 mg was 6-gingerol).

 

The data showed that after eight weeks, both groups had less self-reported eye fatigue (VAS), but the ginger group had a much bigger drop than the placebo group. Similarly, both groups got better at dealing with shoulder pain, but the ginger group got much better results.

 

An analysis of addition sub-groups showed that these benefits were caused by improvements that were statistically significant for women aged 51 and younger. For men, the improvements were not statistically significant.

 

In a small group of younger women, ginger was found to improve blood flow to the extremities.

 

Researchers say that the way ginger affects blood flow in young women suggests that female hormones are involved. Other research has shown that ginger may raise oestrogen and glutathione levels; oestrogen has been shown to increase blood flow, make more nitrogen oxide, and widen blood vessels.

 

“Based on the evidence mentioned above, the increase in blood flow in young females in this study could be driven by blood vessel dilation from enhanced oestrogen levels due to ginger consumption,” they added.

 

Ginger is also a safe complementary medicine for people with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) who are having problems with their gastrointestinal (GI) tract. People with Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) who take it can get rid of constipation, nausea, bloating, and stomach pain.

 

Multiple sclerosis is a long-term disease of the nervous system that makes it hard for the brain and body to talk to each other. This makes the disease more difficult to live with and causes permanent disability. This disease shows up in four different ways, with RRMS being the most common.

 

There is evidence that more than 80% of people with MS have digestive problems. These problems can be caused by complications of the disease, oral disease-modifying treatments, or a mix of the two.

 

Ginger supplements have been shown to help with a number of GI complaints by increasing GI mobility and shortening the time it takes for food to move through the digestive tract, which could help with problems like constipation.

 

Because of this, a 12-week double-blind, parallel randomised placebo-controlled study with 52 people was done to see how taking ginger supplements affected how often and how bad common GI symptoms were in RRMS patients.

 

The study in the journal BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies found that taking 1500 milligrams of ginger every day for 12 weeks greatly lowered the number and severity of nausea and constipation episodes, as well as the amount and severity of bloating.

 

Additionally, taking ginger supplements had a statistically significant effect on lowering the frequency and intensity of bloating and abdominal pain in people with RRMS.

 

Of course, there were no noticeable changes in the number or intensity of dysphagia, diarrhea, belching, flatulence, heartburn, anorexia, or abdominal pain.

 

In an interesting twist, this study found that people who were constipated felt the most relief from their digestive problems when they took ginger supplements. Constipation is by far the most common GI problem among people with RRMS.

 

It's important to note that the improvements seen in constipation, nausea, and bloating in the study were greater than the 10 mm VAS cutoff for a clinically important difference. It was not clinically important, though, that the level of stomach pain got better.

 

Researchers did warn, though, that the results of this study can't be used for all people with MS because they only looked at RRMS cases. The study's GI symptoms were mild to moderate in terms of how often they happened and how bad they were. This makes it hard to tell if the results are also true for people with worse symptoms.