AN OVERVIEW: GINGER, A TREMENDOUS HERB

Currently, the establishment of links between health and food has been diverting the consumer focus, towards plant based functional and nutraceutical food products instead of synthetic medicines for curing numerous philological disorders (Chauhan et al., 2013). Changing lifestyle of people along with poor cultural habits have enforced researcher to find out diet based therapies that are cost effective and safe. In this regard, functional and nutraceutical foods not only fulfill nutritional requirements but also provide medicinal benefits. Now a days, functional and nutraceutical food has become an integral component of diet owing to its therapeutic potential against various lifestyle related disorders like hypercholesterolemia, cardiovascular diseases, hyperglycemia and cancer. In diet-based therapies, indigenous herbs and plants have gained much importance. Diet based therapy has been invigorated worldwide and people are using natural food materials as a remedy against various maladies. Amongst, different dietary regimen tools plant phytochemicals have engrossed attention due to their acceptability, safety and health improving characteristics (Thielecke and Boschmann, 2009). Phytochemicals have the ability to perform various biological functions like reducing oxidative stress and degenerative ailments, metabolic disorders owing to their intrinsic antioxidant potential (Manach et al.,2004). In this regard, functional/nutraceutical foods are being formulated to improve the health (Rains et al., 2011). Nutraceutical and functional foods are gaining much popularity and capturing the global market. Now a days, more than 470 nutraceutical and functional food items are marketed with proved health claims (Eskin and Tamir, 2006). The statistics analysis of market shows that worth of nutraceuticals and functional foods was estimated above $197 billion and 30-60 billion US$ in Japan and USA respectively. The term functional food was defined as “Food which not only provides basic nutrients but also possesses many therapeutic benefits”. The division between functional and nutraceuticals foods is that the nutraceuticals foods are enriched with active components to get targeted health benefits.The utilization of these products not only aimed to get health benefits, besidesthey can also have preventive and curative effects for many ailments ranging from cardiovascular diseases to cancer (Girgih, et al., 2013). Researchers have confirmed that various phytochemicals and bioactive components are present in these indigenous herbs and medicinal plants that ensure their medicinal attribute and thus are an important part of modern functional and nutraceutical foods. Researches have also depicted that a handsome number of phytochemicals and bioactive moieties are present in herbal plants among them ginger (Zingiberofficinale) has rich phytochemical profile as it possesses nutraceutical potential against various physiological threats especially due to the presence of 6gingerol (Karam and Bhavna, 2013). The inclusions of processed foods, changing living patterns and irregular dietary habits are the leading causes of physiological disorders and diet related complexions like diabetes, cancer, CVD, and high cholesterol levels are increasing day by day. Prevention from these disorders is a major public health concern worldwide especially in J. Glob. Innov. Agric. Soc. Sci., 2016, 4(4): 172-187 ISSN (Online): 2311-3839; ISSN (Print): 2312-5225 DOI: https://doi.org/10.22194/JGIASS/4.4.766 http://www.jgiass.com