Move over cayenne.
The compound that
gives cayenne peppers their kick, capsaicin, has long been prized because of
its pain-relieving powers and supposed
ability to slightly boost metabolism, which can aid with weight loss.
But there may be an
equally pungent fat-fighting pepper in your cabinet right now: common black
pepper.
New research, which
identifies the flavor compound piperine as black pepper's secret fat-fighting
weapon, concludes that pepper works by blocking the formation of new fat cells
in the body. Other foods, such as the compound piceatannolthat is found in red
wine, peanuts, and grapes, have also been recently found to have the same
effect.
Prior to this study,
little was known about how piperine works to control fat cells, researchers
wrote in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a journal
published by the American Chemical Society (ACS). Piperine works to fight fat
by interfering with adipogenesis, or the gene activity that causes fat cells to
form and mature, researchers found. In doing so, the compound may also set off
a chain reaction that helps control fat in other ways, the researchers said in
an ACS release.
It takes immature fat
cells, called preadipocytes, about 10 days to go through
adipogenesis. Once the process is complete, fat cells are significantly
more difficult to shrink through a healthy diet and fat-burning exercise.
Before you start sprinkling
pepper on everything you eat, know that more research needs to be done to
determine how much black pepper is needed to consume blocking fat-cell growth.
Similarly, researchers say that piperine in capsule form is also a long way
off. (The study was not a clinical trial on humans, but rather a laboratory
experiment that tested the compound's effect on animal fat cells).
Past research has
found that black pepper can reduce pain and inflammation, stabilize blood
sugar, reduce cholesterol, and lower levels of
blood fat, or lipids, all of which are key to reversing the Western world's
obesity epidemic, researchers say. In the future, scientists believe that
piperine may be able to be made available as an all-natural weight loss
supplement.