Zingiber o ffi cinale Roscoe

Micucci, M., Bolchi, C., Budriesi, R., Cevenini, M., Maroni, L., Capozza, S., Chiarini, A., Pallavicini, M. & Angeletti, A., 2020, Antihypertensive phytocomplexes of proven efficacy and well-established use: Mode of action and individual characterization of the active constituents, Phytochemistry (112222) 170, pp. 1-19 : 11

2.13. Zingiber o ffi cinale Roscoe

Zingiber o ffi cinale Roscoe rhizome is widely used in Ayurvedic medicine, as a treatment for gastrointestinal and cardiovascular ailments. The rhizome contains phenolic compounds and non-volatile pungent active principles including gingerols, paradols, shogaols and gingerones (Semwal et al., 2015).

A water extract from Z. o ffi cinale was shown to inhibit ACE activity in a concentration-dependent manner (Akinyemi et al., 2014). This effect occurs also in vivo, in rats fed with a high cholesterol diet (Akinyemi et al., 2014). The same extract reduces mean arterial BP in L-NAME induced hypertensive rats. Butanol and ethyl acetate fractions seem to be more active than the water fraction (Manosroi et al., 2013). Efficacy of ginger supplementation on BP in clinical trials has been recently reviewed (Hasani et al., 2019).

In vitro experiments on guinea pig isolated tissues showed that the decoction of ginger possesses weak negative inotropic and chronotropic intrinsic activities, along with a significant intrinsic relaxant activity on smooth muscle with a greater potency on ileum than on aorta. The study on the main pure components supports the relationship between 6- and 8-gingerol and 6-shogaol and these effects. These results are in agreement with the activity of calcium channel modulators, which influence more strongly the not vascular muscles than vascular one (Leoni et al., 2017). Previous researches had evidenced, for 6-, 8- and 10- gingerol and, to a minor extent, also for 6-shogaol ( Fig. 13 ), a vasodilator effect through a combination of NO releasing and calcium antagonist mechanism (Ghayur et al., 2005). More recently, 6-gingerol has been shown to attenuate the increased level of blood glucose and to improve cardiac hemodynamics in diabetic rats (El-Bassossy et al., 2016) and it has been identified as a novel angiotensin II type 1 receptor antagonist (Liu et al., 2013). Inhibition of TGF-β- stimulated biglycan synthesis by 6-gingerol suggests the potential role of ginger in the prevention of atherosclerosis (Kamato et al., 2013) .

Figures

Fig. 13. Antihypertensive principles of Z. officinale L.