It may be time to spice up your asthma treatment. A few components of ginger root appear to relax the airway tissues that tighten up during an attack, finds research presented at the American Thoracic Society’s International Conference held in Philadelphia during May 17-22, 2013. 

 

The walls of the airways that carry oxygen to and from your lungs are lined with a type of muscle tissue called airway smooth muscle, or ASM, according to the research. Using ASM in a laboratory setting, a team from Columbia University simulated an asthma attack by dousing samples with a compound designed to tighten them up. Next, the researchers exposed the asthmatic tissue to mixtures containing three different ginger molecules. Here’s what they discovered: All three ginger components significantly relaxed the ASM tissue, which translates to wider airways and easier breathing during an asthma attack, the research shows.  

 

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