Regulation of gut microbiota by ginger, its derived polysaccharides, essential oils, gingerols, and shogaols and related health outcomes

Abstract

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is a widely used culinary spice, which also possesses multiple pharmacological effects as a traditional medicine. This review aims to synthesize currently available human or animal studies focusing on the regulative effects of ginger and its bioactive ingredients including polysaccharides, essential oils, gingerols, and shogaols, on gut microbiota, as well as the associations with their benefits for a series of diseases. Overall, ginger and its bioactive ingredients supplementation could enhance the abundance of beneficial bacteria, while suppress that of pathogenic species, indicating their prebiotic potentials. Mechanistically, ginger and its bioactive ingredients could regulate levels of intestinal short-chain fatty acids, lipopolysaccharides, and other gut microbiota metabolites. Ginger and its bioactive ingredients could upregulate key tight junction proteins, including occludin and zonula occludens-1 to strengthen the gut epithelial barrier. Knowledge gaps and future prospects to develop ginger-based functional foods or standardized ginger formulations for gut microbiota-targeted therapies are proposed.

Keywords: Ginger; Gut microbiota; Regulation; Short-chain fatty acids.