Black Seed: The Cure for Everything Except Death?

Black seed, otherwise known by its Latin genus-species name Nigella Sativa, has been used for thousands of years as a medicine in West Asia and East Asia.

It is most commonly known because the Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said that “black seed is a cure for every disease except death.” Another variation of this narration specifies that both death and poison are exempt from black seed’s healing properties.

Can it really cure everything? In our modern world, we know that regulatory giants like the Food and Drug Administration are revolving doors for industry giants, thus making the credibility of the FDA’s refusal to recognize natural medicine as medicine all the more suspicious. It creates a catch-22 situation: proponents of natural medicine are asked to prove their claims, but due to lack of funding for research and especially the FDA not conducting efficacy tests on the herbal medicine pharmacopea, then how can we prove our claims if studies cannot even be funded and undergone?

Now, to be clear: we are not giving any medical advice here nor making any claims, no matter if accurate or wild/baseless, about what black seed can/cannot do. There are enough blogs out there that give natural medicine a bad name by making all sorts of claims without proper evidence.

If the prophetic medicine tradition about black seed has any weight, then what do studies on black seed actually say? If what is actually provable about black seed’s therapeutic properties is something that is intriguing, then perhaps there should be more testing of black seed in regards to many other ailments to see if the research falls in line with the claims of prophetic medicine.

In the book Encyclopedia of Islamic Herbal Medicine, John Andrew Morrow, PhD, compares and contrasts the prophetic medicine traditions about black seed and the available scientific research done on black seed to see how the two add up or differ. This article is comprised of the research he compiled in his book.

Selcuk University in Turkey conducted a study of multiple essential oils’ effect on six species of Bacillus bacteria. The only oil that did not have anti-bacterial effects was cumin (regular cumin, that is; black seed is sometimes referred to as black cumin seed, but this was regular cumin that was ruled out). Specifically, black seed was found to be effective against standard as well as multi-drug resistant strains of S. aureus and P. aerugenosa bacterial infections.

In regards to diabetes, Morrow states:

According to M. Laiq Ali Khan, Director of the Shah Faisal Institute of Hadith and Medical Sciences, modern trials have proven that black seed alone or in combination with other drugs are highly effective in diabetes mellitus.

Studies conducted in Jordan and the United States, conducted via in vitro methods, show that the oil of black seed is anti-leukemic.

Tanta University in Egypt conducted an 8-week controlled animal trial on the chemopreventive effects of orally-consumed black seed oil. In the initiation state, it did not exhibit any significant inhibitory effects. Anti-proliferative activity was found significantly in both the initiation and post-initiation stages, especially post. Hamdard University in India was shown to have potent chemo-protective effects capable of suppressing tumor production.

Not all black seed oil is the same. Make sure what you buy is certified organic and is cold pressed. When we were trying to source the black seed oil for our CBD + black seed oil supplement, we came across some shady companies that boasted to our face that they do not care about what process and if I wanted to look for organic and cold pressed with no chemical processing, I should go elsewhere. Needless to say, we did, and found quality certified organic black seed oil from Turkey. Thymoquinone is one of the main therapeutic compounds found in black seed oil, and many companies that sell black seed oil list the thymoquinone levels on the nutrition facts label. As usual, consult with a qualified medical professional who is not adverse to natural remedies.

Some research also suggests that black seed is good for both anxiety and inflammation, which makes it a perfect combination for CBD which also is used for the same ailments.

We hope there can be more research to see the effects or lack thereof of black seed oil on a multitude of other ailments and see how truthful the prophetic medicine narration on black seed is. Perhaps we might be pleasantly surprised. Until then, we cannot legally nor scientifically claim that black seed does indeed cure everything. However, there is enough research to show that it does indeed help with a variety of ailments.