The Ginger Prophecy; A Review of the Underexplored Genus, Hedychium against Cancer

Abstract

Cancer, the seventh most fatal disease in the world, poses a long struggle to combat this deadly disease. Economically and pharmacologically important members of Zingiberaceae plant family have helped to eradicate a number of ailments worldwide. This review highlights gingers and their wide spectrum of medicinal values focussing on their role as anticancer agents with facts and data obtained from literature review performed using PubMed, PMC, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar in a systematic way. Among the many genera underlined in this review, several species of Hedychium have emerged as potential cancer treatments with remarkable activity against different forms of tumour. However this genus is not much explored to unravel its value to medical research. Several species have been found to have cytotoxic, antiinflammatory, antioxidant and antitumour activities but not many attempts made to establish the plant principles as anticancer agents.