Health Benefits Of Eating And Supplementing Black Pepper
Black pepper has been used in culinary dishes for a long time, and most people have it in their house as a staple. But, do you add black pepper to your daily meals for health benefits or for flavor? Or, do you take a daily supplement that contains black pepper in it for health or weight loss? If not, you may want to start doing so after you read the surprising health benefits of eating/supplementing black pepper in your diet.
How Black Pepper Has Been Traditionally Used
In Ayurveda medicine, the world’s oldest healthcare system, black pepper has been used for over 4,000 years as a medicinal ingredient. It is named after the Sanskrit word for the sun. According to them, it contains potent solar energy and is an extremely powerful digestive stimulant.
Black pepper can be beneficial as an oil, spice, or compress. When used in cooking as a stimulant, black pepper’s qualities are even more enhanced.
Health Benefits That Are Noted With Black Pepper
Black pepper can be used in a number of different ways for health. This makes it much more than just a seasoning. For instance:
- Black pepper can help to treat indigestion and flatulence. Simply add it to food to help prevent digestive issues. As said, cooking can help enhance the benefits from black pepper.
- It can be used to purify blood when taken with ghee in tea or warm water. This mixture can also help with arthritis and anemia.
- Black pepper’s essential oil can be used to ease joint pain and ache. The essential oil has also been used to treat colds and the flu.
Black pepper is known to stimulate the digestive, nervous, and circulatory systems, which makes it a good ingredient to help with a slow digestive system, drowsiness, and poor circulatory system among other related health issues.
Moreover, black pepper can help to stimulate the appetite in people who are suffering from appetite suppressing issues.
And, black pepper is known to help fight off infections and viruses, clear mucus from the chest, and even have aphrodisiac properties.
Black Pepper Increases Absorption Of Other Nutrients
There is a substance found in black pepper called piperine that increases the absorption of other nutrients by a very large amount – up to 2000% percent. It does this by stimulating cells to help them absorb nutrients from food as well as retain those nutrients longer.
That is very important for everyone, because the more effectively we can use the nutrients from our food, the healthier our bodies will be. In fact, if we can’t use the nutrients from our food then they are essentially useless to us, which makes healthy eating for nutrients a waste of time.
Studies have also shown that piperine has anti-cancer properties. It may be used as a preventive measure.
“Piperine, a piperidine alkaloid present in black pepper, inhibits the growth of cancer cells, although the mechanism of action is not well understood.” – National Center for Biotechnology Information
Black Pepper And Weight Loss
Studies have shown that piperine can also interfere with the genes that influence fat cells and reduce the fat levels in the blood stream. It seems that piperine is able to suppress the regulator for the development of fat cells, which is one of the reasons that BioTrust created BellyTrim XP. These studies have found that piperine may be a potential treatment for obesity-related diseases because of this ability.