Cumin as a Weight Loss Aid: 26% Greater Reduction in Waist Circumference, 32% More Body Fat Lost, Increased Conservation of Lean Mass in 88 Dieting Women

Is a small bowl of yogurt with 1.5g cumin better than every weight loss drug? Probably not, but if we go by the results of the study at hand, it's a damn effective adjunct to an energy reduced diet.

The figures in the headline of today's SuppVersity article certainly are impressive. The total weight loss, the 88 overweight / obese women who had been randomly assigned into two groups who dieted for 3 months either with or without the help of 3 g/d cumin powder with yogurt at two meals (each time 1.5 g cumin + 150 ml low-fat yogurt | the control group received the same amount of yogurt, but without cumin) on the other hand sounds less exciting.

6.2kg in the cumin and 4.19kg in the control group - that does not sound much for "obese / overweight" women. Luckily Iranian "obese women" are comparably slender compared to their Western counterparts. With a starting weight of 79.43kg in the active and 76.7kg in the control arm of the study, those 6.2kg and 4.19kg were thus -7.14% and -5.54% of the women's total body weight.

The results of the study at hand are nice, but one thing is missing: Exercise!

Tri- or Multi-Set Training for Body Recomp.?

Alternating Squat & Blood Pressure - Productive?

Pre-Exhaustion Exhausts Your Growth Potential

Full ROM ➯ Full Gains - Form Counts!

Battle the Rope to Get Ripped & Strong

Hula Hooping to Spot Reduce in the Midsection

In contrast to the starting weight the waist circumference of the ladies who participated in the study showed a borderline significant difference, with a non-significant advantage on part of the women in the control group whose waists were on average 3.2cm more slender.

Figure 1: As the data shows, the cumin supplement helped with both fat loss and lean mass conservation (Zare. 2014)

In view of the fact that fat mass and fat free mass were almost identical, I would yet not argue that this was an unfair advantage for the cumin group - I mean, you should be aware that the "weightier" you are, the more and more readily you will usually drop body weight, when you start doing the right things.

"But I have heard nigella sativa causes abnormal heart growth!" That's fortunately incorrect. Studies by Yar et al. (2008) indicate that high doses of cumin aka "nigella sativa" will lead to physiological cardiac hypertophy, with a "selective enhancement of the inotropic reserve" that's similar to the one "provoked by exercise training" (Yar. 2008). It is thus not really surprising that Dehkordi et al. (2008) observed that cumin exerts anti-, not pro-hypertensive effectsin patients with mild hypertension. Moreover, Al-Asoom et al. have recently been able to show that kumin supplements in combination with exercise "might be introduced as a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of heart failure with superior advantages to exercise training alone" (Al-Asoom. 2014)

Figure 2: Blood lipids & fasting blood glucose improved as well (Zare. 2014)

Apropos, the "right thing" for all women in the study at hand was a diet that delivered 500kcal less energy than the women would have needed according to the well-known Harris-Benedict equation (learn more).

Obviously, this deficit was large enough to trigger a weight loss of approx. 1lbs per week in the cumin group, and 0.6lbs per week in the control group - and that in the absence of any restrictions in carbohydrates, fats or an additional exercise component (the latter is something I would strongly recommend if you plan to lose body fat, though).

So how and why did this work? That's certainly a warranted question. As of now, most of you knew cumin probably as a spice and maybe as a digestive aid (Milan. 2008) - not as a fat burner, glucose sensitizer, lipid drug and, if you dig somewhat further in the archives of peer-reviewed scientific journals, even as a nootropic (Bin Sayeed. 2013), right?

Table 1: Cumin seed oil will deliver most of the cholesterol controlling agents in a concentrated form (Ramadan. 2007)

Well, if you take a look at the literature you will learn that Cumin contains more than 100 different chemicals, including essential fatty acids and volatile oils, which have been shown to induce significant decreases in glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL levels and a significant increase in serum HDL levelsin previous rodent studies (Mohiti. 2011). In that, the lipid reducing effects of cumin could be attributed to (a) its glycoside saponins which inhibit the absorption of dietary cholesterol and increase its fecal excretion by interfering with its enterohepatic circulation and (b) its phytosterol content which will displace cholesterol from intestinal micelles and will thus further reduce the amount of absorbable cholesterol (Hayes. 2002; Ramadan. 2002 & 2007; ). The mechanism by which cumin reduces the blood glucose levels, however, is still not fully understood.

As Zare et al. point out, "the majority of these studies have been done on animals and the published human studies have been conducted on patients suffering from diabetes or hypercholesterolemia," which makes the study at hand that was conducted with healthy (albeit overweight) female subjects all the more important.

References:

• Al-Asoom, L. I., et al. "Effect of Nigella sativa Supplementation to Exercise Training in a Novel Model of Physiological Cardiac Hypertrophy." Cardiovascular toxicology (2014): 1-8. 
• Bin Sayeed, Muhammad Shahdaat, et al. "The effect of< i> Nigella sativa</i> Linn. seed on memory, attention and cognition in healthy human volunteers." Journal of ethnopharmacology 148.3 (2013): 780-786.
• Dehkordi, Farshad Roghani, and Amir Farhad Kamkhah. "Antihypertensive effect of Nigella sativa seed extract in patients with mild hypertension." Fundamental & clinical pharmacology 22.4 (2008): 447-452.
• Hayes, K. C., et al. "Free phytosterols effectively reduce plasma and liver cholesterol in gerbils fed cholesterol." The Journal of nutrition 132.7 (2002): 1983-1988.
• Milan, K. S., et al. "Enhancement of digestive enzymatic activity by cumin (Cuminum cyminum L.) and role of spent cumin as a bionutrient." Food chemistry 110.3 (2008): 678-683. 
• Mohiti Ardakani, J., Z. Akbarian, And A. Nazarian. "Effects Of Cumin (Cuminum Cyminum L) Oil On Serum Glucose And Lipid Levels Of Rats." Journal Of Shahid Sadoughi University Of Medical Sciences And Health Services (2011). 
• Ramadan, Mohamed F., and Jörg‐Th Mörsel. "Characterization of phospholipid composition of black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) seed oil." Food/Nahrung 46.4 (2002): 240-244.
• Ramadan, Mohamed Fawzy. "Nutritional value, functional properties and nutraceutical applications of black cumin (Nigella sativa L.): an overview." International journal of food science & technology 42.10 (2007): 1208-1218. 
• Yar, T., et al. "Effects of Nigella sativa supplementation for one month on cardiac reserve in rats." Indian J Physiol Pharmacol 52.2 (2008): 141-8.
• Zare, Roghayeh, et al. "Effect of cumin powder on body composition and lipid profile in overweight and obese women." Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice (2014). 

194 Bananas in 3 Weeks, Same Liver Fat & Lower Body Fat 6 Months After; Nigella Sativa Boosts Testosterone & Fertility; Sugar Dampens Caffeine Rush + Thyroid & Body Comp.

Three weeks of +1,000 kcal carb overfeeding (approx. 194 bananas!): Does it supersize your liver fat? This and more in today's installment of On Short Notice

As promised in yesterday's first part of the weekly written news-round up aka On Short Notice, we won't waste any time on lengthy introductions (the "short" items themselves are already long enough ;-) and get right down to business! For today this means that we are going to take a peak at the latest studies on

• the reality of thyroid hormone metabolism
• the dampening effects of sugar on high dose caffeine
• the sugary truth about the reversibility of early NAFLD
• the pro-testosterone, pro-fertility effect of black cumin

as well as the latest data on US drug sales and an upcoming blogpost discussing "training for anabolism" - enjoy!

Just in case you feel that's not enough, I suggest you listen to this week's installment of the SuppVersity Science News Roundup (click here to download) on Super Human Radio, as well!

• 

  Figure 1: The more energy reserves a metabolically healthy and euthyroid person has and the more he or she eats (though this was not quantified we can probably assume that the heavier participant also consumed more energy on a daily basis), the less energy efficient is his metabolism going to be - the margin is yet not unlimited, eat 40% more and get fat regardless of what type of food those calories come from (generated based on Roef. 2012)

  Levels of thyroid hormone associated with greater body weight and body fatness I know this sounds surprising, but int he end the latest results from the Department of Endocrinology at the Ghent University Hospital in Belgium only confirm what I keep preaching here at the SuppVersity over and over again: The main reason that the calories in vs. calories out calculations don't work is that the "calories out" part of the equation depends on both the "calories in" and the "calories stored", as well as the "accessibility of the calories stored" parameters, and [...].
  Put differently, the reason that the 941 generally healthy and euthyroid (=normal thyroid function) male siblings (25-45 yrs, median BMI 24.6) with the highest body weights and the greatest body fat mass also had the highest levels of leptin, free and total T3 & T4, as well as thyroid binding globulin is simple: In the presence of ample energy supply their bodies will treat their resources more wasteful, than those of the skinny or wanna-be-skinny, ah... I mean "ripped" guys who undereat and overtrain.
  The opposite is the case for the more muscular study participants, whose greater lean mass and muscle cross-sectional area were associated with lower (F)T3, (F)T4 and TBG levels (p ≤0.0003). They simply cannot afford (you could also say that they don't need) to ramp up their already higher fatty acid oxidation and overall energy expenditure, even further. Lastly, there was a clear-cut association with higher free T3 levels and lower insulin sensitivity, and - I had almost forgotten to mention that - "[n]o associations between TSH and body composition or metabolic parameters were seen."
  I suggest you print the finding about TSH levels and ask your doctor if he judges the speed of his car by looking at the gaspedal (TSH is more or less the gas-pedal that will tell your thyroid how hard it's got to work, but won't tell you how much of active thyroid hormone it is capable of producing) rather than the speedometer, when he is too cheap to order a full thyroid panel the next time you ask him to do so ;-)

• 

  Figure 2: While the initial caffeine spike is blunted by the ingestion of a sugar-laden breakfast, the area under the curve (bottom, right) a similar, yet less pronounced effect and both, the reduction of the initial spike in serum caffeine, as well as difference of the total influx over time are dose dependent (Skinner. 2012)

  Sugary breakfast reduces early rise in serum caffeine levels by up to 90% That's at least the result of a recent study by Tina Skinner and her colleagues from the University of Queensland in Down-Under. The high carbohydrate meal, in this case a toast with jam, cordial, and an energy bar ("Vanilla Crisp" PowerBar Performance Bar), the scientists served their 14 healthy active male participants (age 24.8 ± 3.7 yrs, body mass 74.6 ± 8.5 kg, height 184.0 ± 8.5 cm; mean ± SD) who had reported fasted, well hydrated and 48h after they had consumed their last caffeinated beverage at the lab (Skinner. 2012). It does not really take a rocket scientist to see that the absence of the initial onslaught of caffeine as a result of the pre-ingestion of the sugary "breakfast" will probably diminish, if not totally blunt the stimulating effects of coffee.
  In view of the fact that this effect was particularly pronounced during the "high dose" (=9mg/kg body weight; ~540-900mg; equiv. to 3-4.5 large cups of strong coffee), it is yet probably of greater importance for stim junkies and athletes looking for the pre-workout edge before they hit the gym, than for the average white color worker who needs to get his daily buzz, if he does not want to miss his bus (or train ;-)
• Liver-fattening effects of carbohydrate overfeeding are genetically dispositioned, but the recently published data from a study that was conducted by scientists from the Minerva Foundation Institute for Medical Research, the University of Helsinki and other Finnish research facilities shows that an appropriate diet can reduce increased liver and body fat levels, reduce body fat levels and improve lipid and glucose metabolism, regardless of the genotype (PNPLA3-148II = disadvantaged vs. PNPLA3-148MM) of the subjects.
  But let's take on thing after the other. After some standard baseline tests, the 16 subjects (mean age 54 year; BMI at baseline 30.6kg/m²; 5 men, 11 women) were "overfed" with a high carbohydrate diet from the "every low-carbers worst nightmare" category:
  

  

  Figure 3: Change in body composition from due to 3-week overfeeding (blue), 6 months dieting (compared to post overfeeding - red; Sevastianova. 2012)

  "The subjects were instructed to continue their normal diet and in addition to consume an extra 1000 kcal/d with 98% of energy from carbohydrates. The extra diet consisted of candy (Oy Karl Fazer Ab), pineapple juice (Tuko Logistics Oy), sugar-sweetened soft drinks (Oy Hartwall Ab), and/or carbohydrate-loading drink (Squeezy Sports Nutrition GmbH) and was provided free of charge from the research unit to the study participants." (Sevastianova. 2012)

  As you will probably have expected the highly insulinogenic, additional 21,000kcal from glucose and fructose (~5250g or 194 bananas, medium size to be precise ;-) did leave "their marks" on the waist and hips of the subjects, but probably not to the extend you may have anticipated (see figure 1). Even more suprisingly, the short term overfeeding did not deteriorate any of the blood glucose parameters (all changes had p-values way beyond what would be statistcally significant, the glucose clearance over 2h did even improve! - statistically likewise non-significant, though).
  Most importantly, however, the body composition, triglyceride levels (-6%), HDL (+11%) and all the important body composition measures (see figure 3) improved and the liver fat returned to baseline in the course of the 6-months "diet period", which consisted of - mark my words - nothing but making a switch to a diet with more vegetables, less simple sugars, white flour, and alcoholic drinks and dietary counseling wrt to food types and appropriate (=moderate) portion sizes. No extreme low carbing, no drastic calorie reductions, just healthy whole foods - regardless of "your bad genes"!
• Nigella sativa, aka black cumin, jacks up testosterone and makes tired sperm get a move on Being well aware that you cannot go without a weekly post about at least one natural testbooster,  you will probably be relieved to hear that Rahmatollah Parandin, Namdar Yousofvand and Rostam Ghorbani have published a paper in the latest issue of the Iranian Journal of Reproductive Medicine in which they describe the fertility and testosterone boosting effects of 200 and 400mg/kg of an alcoholic extract from Nigella sativa seeds (Parandin. 2012).
  *Reminder: Regardless of whether we are dealing with rodents or humans, a "testosterone booster" that works in sick animals or humans does not necessarily work in healthy ones, as well. It is much more likely, that the effects on testosterone are secondary to the effect of the effect the herb or whatever else has on the overall health of the lab animals / participants, so that someone who is not sick in the first place won't see any (or at best minimal) improvements.
  The seed extract that was administered to healthy*  male Wistar rats 60 days contained a mix of various active ingredients
  
  • 30-48% Thymoquinone,
  • 7-15% P-cymene, 
  • 6-12% Carvacrol, 
  • 2-7% 4-terpineol, 
  • 1-4% T-anethole, and 
  • 1-8% Sesquiterpene,
  of which Prandin et al. state that Thymogquinone is currently considered to be be the pharmacologically active constituent of N. sativa (cf. Padhye. 2008) - keep that in mind, when you cannot resist giving this stuff a try ;-)
  Now, the ~23% increase in testosterone is certainly nothing like the "140% increase in testosterone" certain supplement companies state one of the testers had (without any peer-reviewed data whatsoever, by the way), but as mediocre as it may seem, it was achieved from a healthy baseline level and it went hand in hand with improvements in all sperm parameters, of which I picked the sperm count and plotted it together with the latest human data from the University Department of Growth and Reproduction at the Rigshospitalet of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in the second graph in figure 3 (Jørgensen. 2012).

  

  Figure 4: Yeah, Nigella boosts testosterone by 20% (left), but there are other things in life... what about it's effect on sperm count (right) for example? The increase the rodents in the high-dose group experients would catapult the infertile Danish men almost into the normal zone (based on Jørgensen. 2012 & Parandin. 2012)

  Now this is certainly by no means scientific evidence and I am not suggesting that it will help solve potential fertility problems (not just because sperm count is only one out of a dozen parameters, but also because we don't know whether what works in healthy rodents will work in sick people; see red box above for the other side of the coin). What I found quite important though, is to give you an idea of what those abstract numbers could eventually mean. Contrary to the 20% increase in testosterone which will hardly help you to build significantly more muscle mass, a similar bump in sperm count (and other fertility parameters) could very well make the difference between fertile and infertile!
  So, at whichever Internet source you may be able to dig up a respective extract and regardless of whether you want it for fertility or futility, ah... I mean "testosterone boosting" issues, make sure that it has a high Thymoquinone content and that you have enough of it to hit the human dose equivalent (click here to learn how to calculate HEDs) of 65mg/kg or 4-5g per day!
  

Figure 6: US Drug sales 2010 & 2011 as posted on the SuppVersity Facebook wall earlier today (based on Lindsay. 2012).

The End - for today, at least. I guess I won't take too much away, if I tell you that there was actually another item scheduled for today... a post about "High or Low, Long or Short, Heavy or Light what are the Best Set Numbers and Rest Times,Weights and Rep Schemes, When You're Training for Anabolism" - and while this is "anabolism" in the old and actually sort of outdated sense of more testosterone and less cortisol, I'm pretty confident that the muscle-heads among you would have liked it, if it did not get longer and longer, so that I decided to polish it up a little and put you on the rack for another two days or so ;-)

So, in case that's driving you crazy, you may want to consider asking your Dr. for a script for an antipsychotic, currently the #5 on the 2011 (=the latest) US drug sale ranking (see figure 6; remember the data is $-based not script-based), I posted along with a handful of other interesting news-items earlier today on the SuppVersity Facebook wall.

References:

• Jørgensen N, Joensen UN, Jensen TK, Jensen MB, Almstrup K, Olesen IA, Juul A, Andersson AM, Carlsen E, Petersen JH, Toppari J, Skakkebæk NE. Human semen quality in the new millennium: a prospective cross-sectional population-based study of 4867 men. BMJ Open. 2012 Jul 2;2(4).
• Lindsley CW. The top prescription drugs of 2011 in the United States: antipsychotics and antidepressants once again lead CNS therapeutics. ACS Chem Neurosci. 2012 Aug 15;3(8):630-1.
• Roef G, Lapauw BM, Goemaere S, Zmierczak HG, Toye K, Kaufman JM, Taes Y. Body composition and metabolic parameters are associated with variation in thyroid hormone levels among euthyroid young men. Eur J Endocrinol. 2012 Sep 6.
• Padhye S, Banerjee S, Ahmad A. Mohammad R. Sarkar FH. From here to eternity- the secret of Pharaohs: Therapeutic potential of black cumin seeds and beyond. Cancer Ther 2008; 6: 495-510
• Parandin R, Yousofvand N, Ghorbani R. The enhancing effects of alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa seed on fertility potential, plasma gonadotropins and testosterone in male rats. Iran J Reprod Med. July 2012; 10(4): 355-362.
• Sevastianova K, Santos A, Kotronen A, Hakkarainen A, Makkonen J, Silander K, Peltonen M, Romeo S, Lundbom J, Lundbom N, Olkkonen VM, Gylling H, Fielding BA, Rissanen A, Yki-Järvinen H. Effect of short-term carbohydrate overfeeding and long-term weight loss on liver fat in overweight humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Sep 5.
• Skinner TL, Jenkins DG, Folling J, Leveritt MD, Coombes JS, Taaffe DR. Influence of carbohydrate on serum caffeine concentrations following caffeine ingestion. J Sci Med Sport. 2012 Sep 7.

Reader Question: Are Black Seeds (Nigella Sativa), Their Oil, Ointments & More Good For Me? What do the Studies Say?

Nigella sativa is available in form of seeds, oils and all sorts of ointments and for many of them there are studies suggesting that they work.

SuppVersity reader Amaan Mueen asks on Facebook: "In traditional Oriental medicine it's said that blackseed is a cure for everything except death, is there any truth to that?" I probably don't give away too much, when I tell you that blackseed (also "black seed") aka "nigella sativa" is not going to cure everything, but death, but that does not mean that modern Western medicine has not been able to confirm what Oriental "doctors" have known for centuries.

In the following I am going to present an allegedly cursory overview of the existing evidence with a focus on those health benefits that could be relevant for the average and extra-ordinary SuppVersity reader.

Learn more about the effects of your diet on your health at the SuppVersity

Only Whey, Not Soy Works for Wheytloss

Taste Matters - Role of the Taste Receptors

Dairy Protein Satiety Shoot-Out: Casein vs. Whey

How Much Carbs Before Fat is Unhealthy?

5 Tips to Improve & Maintain Insulin Sensitivity

Carbohydrate Shortage in Paleo Land

• General anti-oxidant effects - The complete oil of N. sativa, as well as thymoquinone (the main compound of the essential oil) have been shown to significantly reduce non-enzymatic lipid peroxidation in liposomes (Houghton. 1995). Significant anti-oxidant effects have also been observed for other compounds isolated from N. sativa, uncluding thymoquinone, carvacol, t-anethole and 4-terpineol.
  
  

  

  Figure 1: The tymoquinone rich fraction of blackseed (TQRF-X) has dose dependent (L,M,H) effects on antioxidant enzyems in hypercholesterolemic (Ismail. 2010).

  These compounds were found in a series of other in vitro tests to have variable antioxidant, but no pro-oxidant properties.
  
  Most importantly, though, the different compounds in the oil were found to act in a synergistic manner (i.e. more than the mere summation of the actions of the individual compounds). This stresses the importance of using the whole oil (or the crude extract) of the seeds in pharmacological studies.
  
  As Ali and Blunden point out in their review of the literature, "the antioxidant property of N. sativa is multifactorial, [but] it does not seem to involve iron-complexing activity (Ali. 2003). It rather appears as if its general ability to scavenge free radicals, which may be, at least partially, the basis of many human diseases and conditions, could be at the heart of its ability to protect, for example, against CCl4 hepatotoxicity (Nagi. 1999), liver fibrosis and cirrhosis (Türkdogan. 2000), and hepatic damage induced by Schistosoma mansoni infection (Mahmoud. 2002).
• Antiinflammatory and analgesic actions -It's one thing to scavenge free radicals. It's yet a completely different thing to effectively reduce the inflammation that's often, but not always triggered by the presence of free radicals. Against that background it's important to note that an aqueous extract from nigella sativa exhibits strong anti-inflammatory effects, as well (Al-Ghamdi, 2001). Using carrageenan-induced paw oedema as a model of inflammation, and the hot plate reaction time as a model of nociception, the extract was found to possess significant antiinflammatory and analgesic (=pain reducing) action.
  
  As Ali & Blunden (2003) point out, this finding lends some credence to the folk medicinal use of the plant as an antiinflammatory and analgesic substance, and also confirms previous reports on the antinociceptive (Abdel-Fattah. 2000) and antiinflammatory (Mutabagani. 1997) effects of N. sativa oil and its major component, thymoquinone, in mice.
  
  The possible mechanism by which N. sativa exerts its antiinflammatory action has been studied. Thymoquinone has been shown to be a potent inhibitor of eicosanoid generation, namely thromboxane B2 and leucotrienes B4, by inhibiting both cyclooxygenase and lipooxygenase, respectively (Houghton. 1995). Interestingly, it was found that the fixed oil of N. sativa had both antioxidant and anti-eicosanoid effects greater than thymoquinone, which is its active constituent (Houghton. 1995)

Chemical structure of some of the main potentially bioactive compounds in Nigella sativa (Paarakh. 2010).

What's actually in the seeds? N. sativa seeds contain 36%–38% fixed oils, proteins, alkaloids, saponin and 0.4%–2.5% essential oil (Lautenbucher, 1997). The fixed oil is composed mainly of unsaturated fatty acids, including the unusual C20:2 arachidic and eicosadienoic acids (Houghton. 1995). The hitherto discovered active ingredients of the essential oil are thymoquinone  (27.8%–57.0%), ρ-cymene (7.1%–15.5%), carvacrol (5.8%–11.6%), t-anethole (0.25%–2.3%), 4-terpineol (2.0%–6.6%) and longifoline (1.0%–8.0%).

In addition, it contains four alkaloids and several monodesmosidic triterpene saponins. What? Yeah... unfortunately, we know only of few of the (potentially) active ingredients and even less about what exactly they do.

• Anti-Cancer Effect - In an in-vitro study from the late 1990s researchers from the Tobacco and Health Research Institute in Lexington were able to show that the thymoquinone (TQ) and dithymoquinone (DIM) content of nigella sativa have the astonishing ability to kill several parental and multi-drug resistant (MDR) human tumor cell lines (Worthen. 1997).
  

  

  Figure 2: A schematic diagram showing major molecular targets of TQ. As an anticancer agent, TQ inhibits the activity of CYP enzymes, which are involved in metabolic activation carcinogens, and induces the expression and activities of cytoprotective enzymes by activating Nrf2 signaling. TQ selectively induces tumor cell death in an ROS-dependent manner following both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis. TQ exerts anti-proliferative, anti-inflammatory, anti-migratory, anti-invasive and anti-metastatic effects by blocking the activation of NF-κB- and STAT3-regulated gene products (Kundu. 2014).

  In spite of the fact that there are as of yet no studies that show that humans were cured with blackseed, recent studies have shown that Thymoquinone, a component of Nigella sativa, decreases oxidative DNA damage in a rat model of mammary cancer (Sindi. 2014) and protect the brain, liver and other organs from radiation induced damage during cancer therapy (Ahlatci. 2014; Cikman. 2014). So, even if it were not for its established cytotoxic effects in various human cancer cells (e.g. Liver, Khan. 2014; Kidney, Tabasi. 2014; Prostate & Breast Cancer, Schneider-Stock. 2014; Cervix, Ichwan. 2014; etc.), it would still make sense to use black seed extracts as antioxidants during radiation and as studies indicate also chemotherapy (Pace. 2003; Almog. 2014).
• Anti-allergic effects - In a study from 2003 Kalus et al. observed significant reductions in subjective feeling of allergic symptoms in 152 patients with allergic diseases (allergic rhinitis, bronchial asthma, atopic eczema) who were treated with Nigella sativa oil, given in capsules at a dose of 40 to 80 mg/kg/day.
  
  

  

  Figure 3: The addition of blackseeds at a dosage of 2g/day propels the beneficial effects of subcutaneous allergen-specific immunotherapy on polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) function in 24 patients sensitive to house dust mites with allergic rhinitis (Işık. 2010)

  Other studies confirm that Nigella sativa can reduce the peripheral blood eosinophil count, IgG1 and IgG2a, cytokine profiles and lung inflammation in murine model of allergic asthma (Abbas. 2004) that are equal to the corticosteriod dexamethasone and scientists from the Gaziosmanpasa University Medical Faculty say that "N. sativa display its antioxidant and regulatory effects via inflammatory cells rather than the host tissue (brain and medulla spinalis)" in a rodent model of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (Ozugurlu. 2005). Effects that were also observed in a 2010 human study which indicates that "N. sativa seed supplementation during specific immunotherapy of allergic rhinitis may be considered a potential adjuvant therapy" (Işık. 2010 | see Figure 3).
• Anti-diabetes effects: The volatile compounds in nigella sativa oil have been shown to exert potent glucose lowering effects in healthy and diabetic animals (Al-Hader. 1993). Effects that occured in the absence of changes in insulin levels and are almost unsettlingly pronounced.
  

  

  Figure 4: Reduction in fasting blood glucose in the hours after the administration of 50mg/kg volatile oil extract to normal and diabetic rodents (Al-Hader. 1993).

  For those of you who are hovering around in the netherlands of glucose levels, anyway, the 14% reduction Al-Hader et al. observed in the healthy rabbits in their 1993 could in fact be enough to induce mild hypoglycemia and side effects such as ravenous appetite, feeling cold, cold sweat, being irritable and so on - an effect that's going to be particularly pronounced, because blacksee will at the same time inhibit the production of glucose in the liver that would otherwise compensate the drop in blood glucose (Al-Awadi. 1991).
  
  With comparatively lower doses of only 5ml of nigella sativa oil, Mohtashami et al. have recently demonstrated that the beneficial effects on blood glucose are not rodent specific.
  
  

  

  Figure 5: Blackseed consumed in 2x2.5ml servings everydy improves blood glucose management in healthy humans, too (Mohtashami. 2011)

  In their randomized clinical trial with 70 healthy subjects who received either 2.5 ml Black seed oil or a similarly looking mineral oil two times a day, the scientists observed achieved less pronounced, but still significant reductions in fasting blood glucose and the long(er)-term glucose marker HbA1c within only two months.
  
  In view of the comparatively small reductions in blood sugar (see Figure 5), it's also not surprisng that the only side effect was an occasional case of transient nausea. Notable changes in liver enzyme and kidney functional adverse effects, on the other hand, were not observed..
  
  Similar results have been reported for subjects with diabetes (Najmi. 2008), intact and diabetic rats (Hawsawi. 2001; Houcher. 2007) and in several cell models, like muscle cells, where it increases AMPK and GLUT4 expression (Benhaddou-Andaloussi. 2011) or the Langerhans cells (Rchid. 2004) of the pancreas of which Fararh et al. (2002) were able to show that they can partly recover their ability to release insulin in a rodent model of diabetes, when nigella sativa is administered in conjunction with nicotinic acid.
• Cardiovascular effects - The results of a 2014 study by Mohammad et al. indicate that "[t]he use of N. sativa as an alternative therapy for hypercholesterolemia could have profound impact on the management of CVD among menopausal women especially in countries where it is readily available." In the corresponding study 1g of nigella sativa powder consumed after breakfast lead to significant improvements in lipid profiles of menopausal women (decreased total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride, and increased high density lipoprotein cholesterol)within 2 months. Improvements that were lost almost completely after one month without the capped Nigella sativa supplement.
  
  Rather ambigous - at least at first sight - are the effects of nigella sativa on the physiology of the heart, while Al-Asoom et al. (2014a) were able to show that the IFG-1 boosting effects Nigella sativa exerts on exercising rats could make it a valuable tool for the treatment of heart failure with superior advantages to exercise training alone, the same effects are often mentioned as potential unwanted side effects of Nigella sativa.
  

  

  Figure 6: In trained rats, the Nigella sativa induced boost in IGF-1 (left) promotes the exercise induced increase in heart weight (right | Al-Asoom. 2014a)

  Whether that's actually a problem is yet questionable. In view of the nature of the cardiac hypertrophy, it's rather an augmentation of the beneficial cardiac remodeling due to exercise similar to the one we call "athletes heart" than a pathological increase in the size of the heart. Whether similar effects can be observed for skeletal muscle has, at least as far as I know, yet not been tested - it's yet certainly not impossible.

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There is more, to Nigella sativa, but I am tired of listing all the references to its beneficial gastropotective effects, its ability to protect the kidneys and the liver from damage, its anti-stress and anti-anxiety effects, its beneficial effects against candida, bacterial infections and fungi, or its use as a post-coital contraceptive (acute high dose) and fertility booster (chronic low dose | Al-Sa'aidi. 2009) in females & males, respectively. If you want all the details, I suggest the review by Paarakh from 2010 or asking your local oriental medicine practitioner ;-).

The latter may also be a good idea if you want to know how much and which form of blackseed you have to take for whatever you want to achieve, 'cause unlike the traditional uses most of which are backed by scientific studies, "optimal" dosages still await investigation | Comment!

References

• Abbas, Ayman Talatt, et al. "Effect of dexamethasone and Nigella sativa on peripheral blood eosinophil count, IgG1 and IgG2a, cytokine profiles and lung inflammation in murine model of allergic asthma." The Egyptian journal of immunology/Egyptian Association of Immunologists 12.1 (2004): 95-102.
• Abdel-Fattah, Abdel-Fattah Mohamed, Kinzo Matsumoto, and Hiroshi Watanabe. "Antinociceptive effects of< i> Nigella sativa</i> oil and its major component, thymoquinone, in mice." European journal of pharmacology 400.1 (2000): 89-97. 
• Al-Sa'aidi, J. A. A., A. L. D. Al-Khuzai, and N. F. H. Al-Zobaydi. "Effect of alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa on fertility in male rats." Iraq J Verterin Sci 23 (2009): 123-8.
• Al-Asoom, L. I., et al. "Effect of Nigella sativa Supplementation to Exercise Training in a Novel Model of Physiological Cardiac Hypertrophy." Cardiovascular toxicology (2014a): 1-8. 
• Al-Asoom, Lubna Ibrahim, et al. "Comparison of Nigella sativa-and Exercise-Induced Models of Cardiac Hypertrophy: Structural and Electrophysiological Features." Cardiovascular toxicology (2014b): 1-6.
• Al-Awadi, Fatania, and U. Shamte. "The effect of a plants mixture extract on liver gluconeogenesis in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats." Diabetes research (Edinburgh, Scotland) 18.4 (1991): 163-168.
• Al-Hader, Aqel, M. Aqel, and Z. Hasan. "Hypoglycemic effects of the volatile oil of Nigella sativa seeds." Pharmaceutical Biology 31.2 (1993): 96-100.
• Ali, B. H., and Gerald Blunden. "Pharmacological and toxicological properties of Nigella sativa." Phytotherapy Research 17.4 (2003): 299-305. 
• Ahlatci, Adem, et al. "Radiation-modifying abilities of< i> Nigella sativa</i> and Thymoquinone on radiation-induced nitrosative stress in the brain tissue." Phytomedicine 21.5 (2014): 740-744. 
• Benhaddou-Andaloussi, Ali, et al. "The in vivo antidiabetic activity of Nigella sativa is mediated through activation of the AMPK pathway and increased muscle Glut4 content." Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2011 (2011).
• Cikman, Oztekin, et al. "Radioprotective Effects of Nigella Sativa Oil Against Oxidative Stress in Liver Tissue of Rats Exposed to Total Head Irradiation." Journal of Investigative Surgery (2014).
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• Houcher, Zahira, et al. "Effects of methanolic extract and commercial oil of Nigella sativa L. on blood glucose and antioxidant capacity in alloxan-induced diabetic rats." Pteridines 18.1 (2007): 8-18.
• Houghton PJ, Zarka R, de las Heras B, Hoult JRS."Fixed oil of Nigella sativa and derived thymoquinone inhibit eicosanoid generation in leukocytes and membrane lipid peroxidation". Planta Med 61 (1995): 33–36.
• Ichwan, S. J., et al. "Apoptotic Activities of Thymoquinone, an Active Ingredient of Black Seed (Nigella sativa), in Cervical Cancer Cell Lines." The Chinese journal of physiology 57.5 (2014).
• Lautenbacher LM. "Schwarzkümmelöl." Dtsch Apoth Ztg 137 (1997): 68–69.
• Khan, Fazal, et al. "Evaluation of the effect of Nigella sativa extract on human hepatocellular adenocarcinoma cell line (HepG2) in vitro." BMC Genomics 15.Suppl 2 (2014): P63.
• Kundu, Juthika, et al. "Mechanistic Perspectives on Cancer Chemoprevention/Chemotherapeutic Effects of Thymoquinone." Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis (2014).
• Mahmoud, M. R., H. S. El-Abhar, and S. Saleh. "The effect of< i> Nigella sativa</i> oil against the liver damage induced by< i> Schistosoma mansoni</i> infection in mice." Journal of ethnopharmacology 79.1 (2002): 1-11. 
• Mohtashami, R., et al. "Blood Glucose Lowering Effects of Nigella Sativa L. Seeds Oil in Healthy Volunteers: a Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial." Journal of Medicinal Plant 10.36 (2011): 90-94.
• Mutabagani, A., and S. A. M. El-Mahdy. "A study of the anti-inflammatory activity of Nigella sativa L. and thymoquinone in rats." Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal 5 (1997): 110-113.
• Nagi, Mahmoud N., et al. "Thymoquinone protects against carbon tetrachloride hetatotoxicity in mice via an antioxidant mechanism." IUBMB Life 47.1 (1999): 153-159. 
• Najmi, Ahmad, et al. "Effect of Nigella sativa oil on various clinical and biochemical parameters of insulin resistance syndrome." International journal of diabetes in developing countries 28.1 (2008): 11.
• Ozugurlu, F., et al. "The effect of Nigella sativa oil against experimental allergic encephalomyelitis via nitric oxide and other oxidative stress parameters." Cellular and molecular biology (Noisy-le-Grand, France) 51.3 (2005): 337-342.
• Pace, Andrea, et al. "Neuroprotective effect of vitamin E supplementation in patients treated with cisplatin chemotherapy." Journal of Clinical Oncology 21.5 (2003): 927-931. 
• Paarakh, Padmaa M. "Nigella sativa Linn.–A comprehensive review." Indian J Nat Prod Resour 1 (2010): 409-29.
• Rchid, Halima, et al. "Nigella sativa seed extracts enhance glucose‐induced insulin release from rat‐isolated Langerhans islets." Fundamental & clinical pharmacology 18.5 (2004): 525-529.
• Sindi, Abrar, and Karen Carlberg. "Thymoquinone, a component of the Middle East spicy seed Nigella sativa, decreases oxidative DNA damage in a rat model of mammary cancer (693.21)." The FASEB Journal 28.1 Supplement (2014): 693-21.
• Tabasi, Nafise, et al. "Cytotoxic and apoptogenic properties of Nigella sativa and thymoquinone, its constituent, in human renal cell carcinoma are comparable with cisplatin." Food and Agricultural Immunology ahead-of-print (2014): 1-19.
• Türkdoğan, M. K., et al. "The role of antioxidant vitamins (C and E), selenium and Nigella sativa in the prevention of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in rabbits: new hopes." DTW. Deutsche tierarztliche Wochenschrift 108.2 (2001): 71-73.
• Worthen, David R., Omar A. Ghosheh, and P. A. Crooks. "The in vitro anti-tumor activity of some crude and purified components of blackseed, Nigella sativa L." Anticancer research 18.3A (1997): 1527-1532.