Black pepper is a familiar ingredient in our pantry, which is native to south of India. It has been long used and traded worldwide as a popular spice. Black pepper is often consumed in fried form as peppercorn or ground into a powder to add into food for flavor.
The nutritional value of pepper is quite rich with manganese, potassium, iron, vitamin C, D, fiber and other nutrients and precious qualities.
More than a spice, black pepper is also used as a medicine, which can help with respiratory problems, colds and coughs, digestive system and other diseases. Besides, black pepper can be an effective treatment for beauty issues like skin, hair or teeth.
Here are top 10 prominent health benefits of black pepper.
1. Digestive System
Pepper can work effectively to aid digestive system by boosting the secretion of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Furthermore, it knows how to inhibit the growth as well as development of intestinal gas and reduce the risk of getting diseases like constipation, diarrhea and colic.
Besides, back pepper is also effective in flushing out toxins and waste in the body by accelerating the urination and sweating. In other words, after consuming black pepper, toxins, foreign bodies, excess water, uric acid, urea and fat will be gradually moved out of the body system through sweat and urine. This helps you a lot to improve the functioning of the digestion and also prevent diseases like colorectal cancer or gastrointestinal conditions.
2. Respiration
For a long time, people have use pepper as a common and effective remedy to deal with colds and coughs and even nasal congestion and sinusitis. Basically, pepper is able to clear the respiratory tract by dispersing the mucus and phlegm depositions in it. At the same time, the notable irritant property of the spice can easily make you sneeze and cough, thus discharging the annoying material from the body. You will feel much better and heal faster after using pepper for respiratory symptoms.
3. Cognitive System
It has been shown in various studies that pepper can enhance brain functions, including cognitive and memory. Scientists have found a connection between a regular consumption of black pepper and an improvement in patients with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive problems.
4. Weight Loss
Black pepper should be always on the food list of those who want to lose weight. This is due to the fact that pepper can break down fat cells into parts, which are easily processed and used as energy or for other healthy processes. Furthermore, the ability to improve digestion of pepper also contributes significantly to the attempt to lose some weight by preventing the accumulation of fats inside the body. Add more pepper into your daily diet and you will soon see the expected result.
5. Skin Health
By removing toxins and waste out of body through sweat and urine, pepper helps clean out the pores and make the skin look cleanser and glower. Additionally, it is confirmed that pepper has the properties to deal with some of skin diseases, especially vitiligo. While vitiligo causes the loss of skin pigmentation, making the area turn abnormally white, pepper makes use of its piperine to boost the production of pigment. To quickly reduce the symptoms of vilitigo, you’d combine the consumption of pepper with the therapy using ultra violet light.
6. Antibacterial
Another excellent quality of pepper is antibacterial, which is used to combat infections and insect bites. It should be added regularly into the diet to clean the harmful factors like cholesterol in the arteries, reducing the chance getting atherosclerosis.
7. Antioxidants
Antioxidants are valuable substances used to neutralize free radicals, dangerous byproducts of body metabolism. If free radicals are free to develop inside the body, they possibly do harm to the body system, leading to such conditions like aging symptoms, visual impairment and various diseases like heart diseases, cancer, liver or kidney problems. Fortunately, antioxidants can inhibit the growth of free radicals and they are abundant in black pepper. Consuming black pepper on daily basis is an ideal way to reduce the negative impact of free radicals in the body.
8. Peptic Ulcers
There are evidences for the ability of black pepper in preventing peptic ulcers thanks to the content of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Furthermore, it can also protect the body from gastric mucosal damage.
9. Nutrient absorption
Not only providing nutrients and benefits to human health, black pepper also facilitates the bioavailability inside the body. In other words, black pepper enhances the ability of other healthy foods that we are taking in everyday. As you see, what you get from black pepper is not limited within the spice’s health benefits.
10. Antidepressant
Black pepper can be seen as a great food with an amazing ability to regulate our mood by using the piperine to boost serotonin production, which is extremely important for our mood regulation.
Generally, using black pepper, you can also help to improve mental clarity, reduce stress, anxiety and lift your mood.
