My mother is 68, takes lisinopril for hypertension and atorvastatin for cholesterol, and has been generally skeptical of supplements her entire life. She grew up in Turkey and ironically was very familiar with black seed (corek otu) from her childhood but had never taken it medicinally.
I convinced her to try one teaspoon daily mixed into her morning yogurt — a format she found acceptable both culturally and tastewise. She was not enthusiastic but agreed to humor her son for three months.
She noticed very little subjectively. "Maybe I have a bit more energy," she told me at the one-month mark, clearly trying to be encouraging. At two months, she mentioned offhand that her knee pain (mild osteoarthritis) seemed slightly better on walks, but she attributed it to the warmer weather.
The three-month bloodwork told a different story. Her blood pressure readings, which had been stable on lisinopril at around 138/85, had dropped to 124/78. Her doctor reduced her lisinopril dose. Her LDL went from 118 to 98. Her fasting glucose, which had been creeping into prediabetic range at 108, was back at 96.
Her doctor — a conservative internist not inclined toward supplement enthusiasm — asked what had changed. When my mother mentioned the black seed oil, he looked it up, found the meta-analyses, and told her to keep taking it. That was the most remarkable part of this story to me.
She is now 14 months in and has become the person recommending it to all her friends. Her bloodwork improvements have been maintained. She still does not notice dramatic subjective effects, but the objective data speaks for itself.
I want to be responsible here: she is also on prescription medications, eats a Mediterranean diet, and walks daily. The black seed oil is additive to an already healthy foundation. But the timing of the improvements correlates precisely with when she started supplementation, and her regimen was otherwise unchanged.