Black seed oil is not going to save you
The problem with herbal medicines
Black seed oil is the latest trending “superfood”, and is purportedly the healthiest thing ever, which commenters on my posts about seed oils never hesitate to remind me of.
It promises to treat everything from diabetes to asthma, and people often ask if it’s actually good for you.
So does it even work? And why are people so obsessed with it?
Why do people take it?
When cold pressed, black cumin seeds yield an oil (called Black Seed Oil) that has been used in the middle east and Mediterranean region as a “cure-all” for thousands of years.
It was found in some Egyptian tombs and Avicenna wrote about it once, but overall its historical use seems to be exaggerated.
But it contains a very interesting molecule.
Thymoquinone
Thymoquinone is an antioxidant molecule which is responsible for most of the claimed benefits of black seed oil.
It’s a potent anti-inflammatory, which would explain most of the benefits people get from it.
Reduced allergies and asthma, and preventing heart disease, lowering blood sugar, and reducing obesity are often cited.
These benefits are entirely plausible; the mechanism makes sense, and its proponents seem credible.
So what’s the problem?
Black seed oil does contain a ton of linoleic acid, the unsaturated fat that is responsible for most of the ill effects of seed oils.
However, the dose always makes the poison, and given the other benefits and the low dose that people normally take, this is probably not a big deal.
But there’s another problem with black seed oil that’s more subtle, and it has to do with the nature of anti-inflammatory compounds.
“If it works…”
Just because something works, should you take it?
Motrin, advil, and aspirin can decrease inflammation and fevers, and are even used to help “prevent” heart disease.
Zyrtec, Claritin, and oral steroids are massively helpful for allergies and asthma. They can even be life saving in extreme cases.
But if you wanted to take all of those drugs to solve your problems, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.
Why not? They work, don’t they?
“But they only treat the symptoms and not the causes though,” you’d quickly rebut.
Exactly.
All of them are anti-inflammatory compounds that suppress inflammation, the body’s natural immune response to some underlying stressor.
And that’s exactly what black seed oil does too. Or turmeric, or green tea, or any of the other ever-popular anti-oxidants.
Artificial vs. Natural
Why would we make an exception to our distaste for symptom-treating, just because a substance is natural?
Is it because the natural ones have lower side effects?
Ricin, a deadly bio-weapon, comes from beans.
Hemlock is a plant, and most mushrooms will kill you.
The point is, “natural” substances are not necessarily safer than synthetic ones.
As for black seed oil, it doesn’t seem that unsafe. So why not take it?
Should you take it?
The short answer is, maybe. It’s worked for many people. If your health is actually improving (i.e. you experience objective overall improvements along important dimensions), then maybe you should go for it.
But keep in mind that if black seed oil were required to be free of asthma, heart disease, etc., then every human who didn’t take it would be chronically ill.
But they aren’t. People who are healthy are healthy because they have low total inflammation/stress, not because they take anti-inflammatories.
Were your great great grandparents, who never knew obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or alzheimers, healthy because they took black seed oil?
Of course not.
By this simple litmus test, black seed oil (and many other “remedies”) can be seen for what they really are: fundamentally unnecessary, and distracting from the root cause of the problem.
Spend time and money on things that are crucial for health. Then you won’t need to rely on suppressing your natural immune response.
Why are people so obsessed with it?
It’s worth exploring how things like black seed oil develop such a fanatic following, when it seems obvious that it doesn’t acting differently from many drugs which alternative people virulently hate.
In many ways the supplement industry is similar to the pharma industry which exploits patients’ ignorance to sell them a quick fix.
The difference is that their target market doesn’t like that “easy way out” philosophy of healing. Or at least, they like to think they don’t.
The solution is to play up the “natural” apsect of these alternative remedies. This creates a false dichotomy between “symptom-treating and synthetic” vs. “root-cause and natural”.
People then get excited, and buy into an easy cure for their problem so long as it isn’t an evil pharma drug.
But how helpful is black seed oil, or sea moss, or chlorophyll, or zeolite, or whatever, when the food you eat is full of soybean oil, preservatives, and pesticides; and when the air you breathe is thick with carcinogenic smog, and your drinking water slowly transforms your brain into a stalactite?
There’s far more health impact to be found by addressing those issues head on.
But since these natural remedies improve their symptoms, people get distracted by the short term results and forget that they got into “alternative health” in the first place in order to address the root cause of their problems.
It takes discipline and restraint to focus on the long term. But black seed oil is easy and seductive.
“It works quickly, and pharma didn’t make it? Sign me up!”
That’s just trading synthetic pills for natural pills.
They want their salvation to come in a bottle, instead of through the tough work required to actually solve problems.
Salvation in a bottle
This is no different than the "laziness" of an obese person who wants bariatric surgery. However, people who follow every “natural” medicine trend are quick to point out the laziness of the pharma approach, but don’t realize that they aren’t much different.
“I am enlightened, because I don’t go to doctors, and take herbal medicine instead of synthetic ones.”
It’s hypocritical.
Achieving your health goals requires critically examining everything. There are obvious problems like food (raw milk can only do so much), water, air, EMF, etc.
But you also need to address your mental patterns, breathing, self talk, relationships, career, and even hobbies.
That amount of introspection is hard enough, let alone implementing those changes to your life that are realized through critical self-examination.
Most don’t want to put in that work. They want the results, but they don’t to make the changes needed to get them.
It’s easy to pat yourself on the back for using only natural medicines, but that doesn’t mean you’ve fundamentally solved your health problems.
False gods
Instead, people will continue their prideful defense of black seed oil and other false health gods, while rejecting the hard but true solutions to their problems.
Now I’m not saying that supplements, herbal remedies, and other therapies don’t work. They can be very useful.
The world is corrupt, and we may never get to a state where perfect health can be achieved without any of these symptom-addressing substances.
I personally use a number of such substances, but I do not lie to myself that they are solving my problems at a fundamental level. And I continually try to reduce my reliance on them.
But they are just tools among many, which many people tend to over rely on because they makes life easy.
Cutting corners doesn’t work, and you’ll need to put in the work eventually, or suffer the consequences.
Conclusion
Black seed oil is an effective natural anti-inflammatory
It contains a lot of PUFA, which is toxic, but may be worth it because of its benefits
However, natural remedies like black seed oil still only address symptoms by suppressing inflammation, no different from many drugs
The better solution would be to solve the causes of inflammation, by focusing on the fundamentals like food, water, sleep, air, activities, hobbies, stress, etc.
Tools like black seed oil have their place, but it’s important to remember they don’t fundamentally fix anything.
I applaud your emphasis on the false dichotomy of natural vs artificial. Nothing is truly artificial because everything comes from nature. This is why I prefer more accurate & precise terms such as refined, synthetic, altered etc. It also cannot be stressed enough that ‘natural’ (unrefined, naturally occurring) products are not inherently healthier or less toxic than ‘unnatural’ (synthetically altered - even a highly synthesised chemical that is far from anything naturally occurring) products. I prefer natural, traditional everything because we have far more evidence regarding their toxicity (the primary focus of my research) & overall safety. I also believe there is an important energetic/metaphysical component. Excluding the measurable physical damage done to food by refining & processing, we don’t know the full energetic effects. The same goes for GMO plants grown by huge corporations with destructive modern BigAg vs heirloom plants grown on a family homestead with biodynamic permaculture.
You are of course completely correct about treating symptoms vs root cause of disease, regardless of the type of easy fix that’s used. But I think that we have evolved with the use of natural sources of antioxidants & other therapeutic chemicals - not just those naturally occurring in good food, but specifically in certain plants/animals which don’t have significant nutritional value, such as tea & spices, which we know have been used for millennia if not longer. Though I agree with you that dose is hugely important, & it’s unlikely we’ve ever had the kinds of extremely concentrated extracts that exist now. That said, traditional peoples are less dysgenic, & at least some of them likely consumed therapeutic remedies continuously throughout life, unlike most people now. So taking more concentrated supplements, at least for a while, may be necessary in addition to thoroughly improving one’s entire lifestyle.
Re: black seed oil, I recently tried it, & it only seems to have one therapeutic benefit for me. I have had very painful menstrual cramps since age 16; my first 3yrs were painless, then I had my first hormonal migraine ever, & from then on every cycle except 2 has been painful. It’s worth noting that I attended boarding school for high school & was forced to eat the cafeteria food, which is when I definitely consumed the most seed oils. I also had to cut back on my animal product consumption & certain produce because I am extremely sensitive to pesticide residue & the junk in meat & dairy especially. If I drink a large full fat latte made with conventional US milk, I suffer from mild flu like symptoms shortly after. If I eat too much conventional food regularly, I become extremely sick & prone to severe infections like strep & bronchitis (this was discovered via traveling which my family frequently did). I grew up eating organic, local whole foods though not nearly enough meat.
My diet & lifestyle has been excellent - except for lack of sun, mother died of skin cancer - from age 19 on. But nothing helps my cramps except high dose ibuprofen & the very strongest opiates. My father was an OBGYN & my mother also worked women's health. I’ve had a thorough fertility work-up & everything is normal if not above average. There is no underlying cause that anyone can find or even think of. I am a genetic & medical anomaly in many ways, including possessing 3x the number of average nerves. I am also more sensitive to pain than most, extra nerves aside. And I’m a genetic hyperovulator (I frequently release 2 eggs) & very estrogen sensitive. The first month I took black seed oil every other day I had a nearly completely painless period. I haven’t tried to replicate it yet, & it could be a coincidence, as I have had 2 completely painless periods over almost 30yrs, though it seems unlikely. That cycle overall was the best cycle I’ve ever had too - I’ve always tracked my cycles in detail - not that my cycle is usually problematic/bad. Any thoughts?