** Note: After I tried my experiment, I realized that the effects of the ginger would theoretically last a long time. You can see some results in the link below. In the study, they used sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is a phytochemical, and works using the same process as ginger. It has a bunch of electrophiles that undergo redox reactions with low redox potentials. There’s another study with spirulina that shows the same thing, but I haven’t included it. There’s also studies linking glutathione to low platelets, and inflammation to high platelets. Turns out that if you have high platelets, you probably have cancer. But, that’s a topic for another day.
Here’s a study on diabetic mice.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3495894/#!po=54.3478
In the study, the researches gave sulforaphane to rats for three months. The sulforaphane warded off all the effects of diabetes. It also upregulated NRF2 and other signalling networks involved with DNA repair. The surprising finding is that they tested the months @ 6 months (three months after the last treatment of sulforaphane), and found that the beneficial effects persisted. This study proves a link between ginger and the upregulation of NRF2.
The study authors weren’t sure how the effects could possibly persist for months after they stopped feeding ginger to the mice. They eventually concluded that while the exact mechanism isn’t fully elucidated, but it looks like the sulforaphane caused epignetic modifications. Essentially, it increased global levels of DNA methylation or histone acetylation.
DNA methylation is pretty complex, and I will discuss it more later. But, increasing global levels of DNA methylation is a good thing. DNA methylation levels fall when you age. So far, the best “biological clock” we have uses DNA methylation to predict people’s age. It’s very accurate. DNA methylation is not the same thing as the methylation cycle. It has nothing to do with getting rid of toxins from the body or Depak Chopra.