It’s the easiest way to inject flavour into your cooking – a sprinkle of cinnamon on your porridge, cumin in your soup, ginger in your tea or fresh herbs in your salads and stews. But did you know your penchant for black pepper or addiction to chilli could be boosting your heart health too?
A 2021 study found that seasoning your food heavily with spices, herbs, garlic and other natural flavourings won’t just make meals taste great, it’s also likely to improve your blood pressure.
Researchers from Penn State University found seasoning food with 6.5g (or about 1.3tsp) of herbs and spices every day could encourage lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The study followed 71 people who were at risk of suffering from heart disease for three four-week periods. During that time, the participants only ate meals prepared in the study’s kitchen, with one of the four-week periods featuring a diet low in herbs and spices while the other two periods saw them consume medium to high levels. Researchers found that after four weeks on a diet with increased herbs and spices, blood pressure readings improved.
The paper, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, revealed the participants had an average American diet (which tends to be too high in saturated fats) and hadn’t reduced their sodium intake or upped the number of fruits and vegetables they were eating during the trial. “Just adding the herbs and spices in and of themselves caused an effect on blood pressure,” says Professor Penny Kris-Etherton, a lead investigator on the study, who says further studies now need to be done to determine how much better the readings could be if you were to alter other factors like “diet, weight loss, reducing sodium, increasing potassium, increasing fruits and vegetables that are sources of nitrate to increase nitric oxide production.
“I would like to look at what maximum result you could achieve with all those interventions.”
Turmeric has long been hailed as a kind of wonder ingredient; you can now buy everything from turmeric supplements to immune boosting juices.
But what are the other herbs and spices you should be turning to, and how can you easily add them to meals?
1. Choose anti-inflammatory spices
Researchers weren’t able to determine which of the variety of herbs and spices used in the study were the most effective in lowering blood pressure, but Kris-Etherton says the anti-inflammatory influence that some spices can have on the body may have contributed to the overall effect.
Kris-Etherton was part of another study which showed spices had an effect on inflammation in the body “at the cellular level. We saw a reduced production of certain inflammatory markers on the high spice diet, so they’re doing something intracellularly.”
Nutritionist Jane Clarke recommends adding anti-inflammatory spices to your diet, whether or not your heart health is a specific concern. “Spices like turmeric are well documented as helping to reduce inflammation within the body,” says Clarke, founder of Nourish by Jane Clarke, “which is why people take it for heart health, cancer health, their immune system, all of the different elements that have been linked with inflammation diseases.”
It isn’t just turmeric, Clarke points out, that can help with heart health – ginger and black pepper are also anti-inflammatory. And you don’t necessarily need to eat them in their fresh form, which can be more expensive and involve rather more prep. Rather than grating ginger or turmeric root, Clarke says you’ll still “feel the benefit” with the powdered kind. “You don’t have to buy turmeric chasers and juices; you can just make a simple turmeric tea.”
For a simple way to get more anti-inflammatory ingredients into your day, why not try Lee Holmes’s anti-inflammatory toddy or ginger, lemon and garlic morning drink.
2. Just add chilli
Chilli can also do wonders for your heart health. A 2019 study found consuming chilli frequently could halve the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke. Researchers at the Institute for Research, Hospitalisation and Health Care Neuromed in Italy looked at the chilli intake of almost 23,000 people and found regular chilli eaters had 40 per cent fewer fatal heart attacks and 61 per cent fewer deadly strokes. Overall, mortality rates were almost a quarter lower in those eating chilli at least four times a week, regardless of their other dietary habits.
Chilli is rich in a compound called capsaicin, which has been linked to improved heart function. It’s also thought to help reduce inflammation and slow the spread of cancer cells.
You can add chopped fresh chillies or dried chilli flakes and powders to the base of all manner of soups, curries and stews, scatter them on finished dishes or make a fresh chilli paste to keep in the fridge and add to things – though you might want to pick a recipe that isn’t too high in salt or sugar, like Claire Thomson’s green chilli sauce, which is made simply by blitzing green chillies with garlic, fresh coriander, lemon juice and a pinch of salt.
