Herb library · Spice · Nigella sativa
Black cumin (black seed)
Small black seeds, kalonji in Indian cooking, sprinkled on breads and pressed for black seed oil. Many small trials in people suggest modest drops in cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure, but reviewers rate most of that evidence as low or very low quality. The oil has caused severe skin reactions.
Serious warning
Black seed oil has caused severe, blistering skin reactions needing hospital care when applied to the skin (a French case series, 2018), and a 2024 case report describes kidney and liver injury after drinking the oil.
Traditional use
Used for about three thousand years as a food and remedy in the Middle East, India and the Mediterranean. Dutt's 1877 compilation from Sanskrit medical works, where it is krishnajiraka, records that the seeds were given for indigestion, loss of appetite and fever, were given to new mothers to increase milk, and that Chakradatta prescribed them after childbirth; the seeds were also scattered among woolen shawls against insects all over India. Nineteenth-century Indian sources record it as a spice, as a digestive given with other aromatics, and in Unani medicine as a warming medicine; it has also been used in India, Türkiye and the Middle East to increase breast milk. Today black seed oil and capsules are sold for cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, asthma and general health.
Traditional energetics
Galenic (hot or cold, dry or moist)
Hot and dry in the third degree. Culpeper's Complete Herbal (1814), p. 269 (opens in a new tab)
What studies show
- Limited
Cholesterol: a 2016 meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials found small drops in total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. An overview of the black seed meta-analyses judged most of them to be of low or critically low quality and called for larger, high-quality trials.
- Limited
Blood sugar: a 2019 meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials found modest drops in fasting blood sugar and HbA1c; the authors say longer, better-designed studies are needed to settle the dose and the size of the effect.
- Limited
Blood pressure: a 2023 meta-analysis found drops of about 3 points in both systolic and diastolic pressure, with very large differences between the studies.
- Limited
Asthma: a 2020 meta-analysis of only four randomized trials found some improvement in asthma control scores and lung function.
- Insufficient
Breast milk: LactMed says no scientifically valid clinical trials support its use to increase milk supply; one study found a slightly larger rise in prolactin than placebo but no effect on infant growth.
Be careful of
Cautions
- AllergyBlack seed oil on the skin can cause allergic contact dermatitis (LactMed). A French case series described three women hospitalized with severe, blistering reactions after applying the oil.
- AmountFood and supplement amounts differ. The seeds, used as a food ingredient at traditional levels, are considered safe (a 2022 regulatory assessment). The trials used capsules or oil, and a review of 19 trials found kidney blood tests rising at doses above 2,000 mg a day.
- NoteA 2024 case report describes kidney injury, muscle breakdown and liver injury after a person drank black seed oil.
- InteractionIt may lower blood sugar and blood pressure, so tell your clinician if you take medicines for either. A case report linked black seed oil and evening primrose oil taken before surgery to a severe drop in platelets.
- PregnancyLactMed says nothing is known about its passage into breast milk or its safety for nursing infants, though limited information suggests it is generally well tolerated. No pregnancy safety information was found in the sources used here.
- Ask a clinicianTalk with a clinician or pharmacist before using this if you take prescription medicines, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are giving it to a child.
From the old books
What herbals and dispensaries of the past printed. History, in their words.
“The seeds of Nigella sativa are regarded as aromatic, carminative stomachic and digestive, and are used in indigestion, loss of appetite, fever, diarrhoea puerperal diseases etc. They are also said to increase the secretion of milk, and are therefore given to recently delivered females in combination with a few other medicines.”
“Anyhow, it must have been long known in India, as it has a Sanskrit name, Krishnajiraka. Nigella seed is extensively used as a spice, and as a medicine; it is prescribed by the Hindus with other aromatics and plumbago root in dyspepsia.”
“Nigella seeds, boiled in oil, and the forehead anointed with it, ease pains in the head, take away leprosy, itch, scurf, and help scald heads: Inwardly taken they expel worms, they provoke urine, and the menses, help difficulty of breathing.”
In scripture
Where the Bible names this plant, and which plant scholars think is meant.
When he has leveled its surface, doesn’t he plant the dill, and scatter the cumin seed, and put in the wheat in rows, the barley in the appointed place, and the spelt in its place? For his God instructs him in right judgment and teaches him. For the dill isn’t threshed with a sharp instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned over the cumin; but the dill is beaten out with a stick, and the cumin with a rod.
Here the World English Bible's "dill" translates the Hebrew qetsach (the King James Version has "fitches"). Tristram (1898) identifies it without doubt as black cumin, Nigella sativa, the plant on this page, whose hard seed pods were beaten out with a staff. H. B. Tristram, The Natural History of the Bible (1898), p. 444 (opens in a new tab)
Sources
- Black Seed — Drugs and Lactation Database (LactMed), PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Nigella sativa and health outcomes: an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Front Nutr, 2023) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Nigella sativa (black seed) effects on plasma lipid concentrations in humans: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials (Pharmacol Res, 2016) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Effect of Nigella sativa (black seed) supplementation on glycemic control: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials (Phytother Res, 2019) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Antihypertensive effects of Nigella sativa supplementation: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (Phytother Res, 2023) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- The influence of Nigella sativa for asthma control: a meta-analysis (Am J Emerg Med, 2020) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- The effect of Nigella sativa on the measures of liver and kidney parameters: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized-controlled trials (Pharmacol Res, 2020) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Assessment of black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) as a food ingredient and putative therapeutic agent (Regul Toxicol Pharmacol, 2022) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Association between severe acute contact dermatitis due to Nigella sativa oil and epidermal apoptosis (JAMA Dermatol, 2018) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney injury after consumption of black seed oil (Toxicon, 2024) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
- Severe thrombocytopenia associated with black seed oil and evening primrose oil (Cureus, 2020) — PubMed record (opens in a new tab) · NIH · read September 25, 2026
Reviewed September 25, 2026.