An affordable product can protect against heart disease and cancer

Heart disease and cancer are ubiquitous threats to human life, but regular consumption of certain spices can help fight them off. Doctors from Great Britain advise adding black pepper to food for this purpose.

"Life experience teaches you that there are many life-threatening diseases. And while it's impossible to completely protect yourself from these threats, you can take some steps to reduce your risk of encountering them. Research shows that diet is a key way to extend life by reducing the incidence of heart disease and cancer," experts said.

Doctors from the NHS (National Health Service) advise to pay attention to black pepper. According to them, the available product has properties that can provide protection against the named diseases. Its consumption helps to reduce the high level of cholesterol in the blood, a marker of heart disease.

Cholesterol is a fatty substance in the blood that can clog arteries when accumulated in large quantities. The effect of black pepper extract was studied on animals. For 42 days, rats fed it with a high-fat diet had lower levels of cholesterol in their blood, including LDL ("bad" cholesterol, the most harmful to arteries).

In addition, black pepper enhances the absorption of other food components that lower cholesterol, for example, turmeric.

The available data also suggest that the active compound of black pepper, piperine, may have anticancer properties.

“Although no human trials have been conducted, test tube studies have shown that piperine slows the replication of breast, prostate and colon cancer cells and causes the cancer cells to die. Another test-tube study screened 55 compounds from the spice and found that piperine from black pepper was the most effective in increasing the effectiveness of conventional treatment for triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive type of cancer,” the doctors said of the advantage of the affordable product.

In addition, they noted that to protect against heart disease and cancer, it is important to practice a healthy diet in general. Experts recommend following the following principles:

• eat at least five servings of various fruits and vegetables every day;
• choose unsaturated oils and eat them in moderate quantities;
• use dairy or fermented milk products;
• eat protein-legumes, fish, eggs, meat and other protein sources every day;
• give up drinks with a high sugar content;
• control the consumption of salt and fat;
• drink enough fluids.