A systematic review and meta-analysis depicted that Nigella sativa supplementation is safe, well-tolerated and exerts a significant positive effect on liver enzymes and lipid profile of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) patients. Anoop Tiwari et al. sought to investigate the effectiveness of Nigella sativa supplementation in regulation of several metabolic parameters in NAFLD people.

Along with manual search, databases like Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, Cochrane Library were extensively explored for finding out all the relevant published randomized controlled trials of Nigella sativa for NAFLD management. Overall, 4 randomized controlled trials and 224 NAFLD patients were incorporated.

As found, Nigella sativa intervention substantially reduced the levels of alanine transaminase (standardized mean difference [SMD]: 2.09), aspartate aminotransferase (SMD:1.85), low density lipoproteins (SMD: 0.55), triglycerides (TG; SMD: 0.37) and improved the levels of high density lipoproteins (SMD: -0.82) without eliciting adverse effects. Nigella sativa did not considerably decrease the body mass index (SMD:0.16).

Thus, supplementation with Nigella sativa appears to be beneficial for NAFLD management. However, additional high-quality and robust clinical studies are required for validating these findings.