We are living in the age of information. Never before has it been so quick and easy to acquire information on any subject you can think of. In just 20 years Google went from being a two-man operation run from a garage to the largest company in the world. They say that money is power, but perhaps it is truer that information is power. If you can control the information that people are exposed to, you can control their entire perception of reality. That is true power!

The age of information is also the age of misinformation, and of distraction. How much of this torrent of newly available knowledge is the knowledge that can make us healthier, happier, and bring us in line with our life purpose? The age of information can serve us or lead us astray depending on our ability to discern what is useful and what isn’t. 

To find out what really benefits us we have to dig deeper than a Google search. This article will demonstrate this by looking at the case of black seed oil. Recently there has been a flurry of scientific research into its healing effects, leading to substantial evidence that it can help with a huge number of medical conditions. Yet if you search in Google, most of the sites that come up with not provide you with this information.

When it comes to health, modern society generally favours pharmaceutical drugs, and this is reflected in the information available to the general public. But the good news is that, if you did a little deeper than the first page of Google you can find about the latest scientific evidence when it comes to natural health. 

So, let’s take a look at black seed oil, pressed from the seeds of Nigella Sativa (black cumin seed).   Black cumin seed is one of the most celebrated healing herbs of all time. Black seed oil was found in the tombs of Pharaohs. It was is mentioned in the Old Testament and heavily in the Islamic tradition where it was famously said to “cure everything but death”. In the ancient Indian tradition, it was prescribed all sorts of health conditions. So, we have thousands of years’ worth of ancient testimonials on the power of black cumin seed, but it is only in the last three decades that scientists have started to unravel the mysteries of its healing ability. A most remarkable finding is that its active ingredient Thymoquinone (TQ) operates on a genetic level, for example by reprogramming the DNA of cancer cells so that they self-destruct. You can read more about this and its other healing properties on our black seed oil page. 

A team of researchers, from Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, have recently carried out a review of all the medical research into black cumin seed and it makes for fascinating reading.  They review from 150 different scientific studies which show black cumin seed’s ability to fight the following medical conditions:

Alzheimer’s Disease 
Parkinson’s Disease
Depression and Anxiety *
Epilepsy *
Opioid Dependence and Tolerance *
Cancer * (18 different studies)
Asthma *
Rheumatoid Arthritis *
Bacterial Infections
Fungal Infections
Viruses (including HIV)
Parasites 
Low Sperm-Count *
Diabetes *
Obesity

The evidence is a combination of lab studies, animal studies and human studies. The * indicates human studies in the review. 

Now let’s compare this with what comes up when you type, “Black seed oil” into Google.

The health information websites that appear are:  WebMD, Healthline, Medical News Today (owned by Healthline) and RxList (owned by WebMD). So, just two companies are controlling all the information you see on the first page of Google. If you look at who owns these companies, you will find that it is ultimately a handful of billionaires who control all the information you see!

Black seed oil is just one example out of the millions of possible searches that you can type into Google and see these same four websites appearing. Try any pharmaceutical or natural remedy and they will be there. That gives them enormous power.

These are massive companies, worth billions of dollars and their sites always dominate Google’s results when you are searching for anything related to medicine.  Should you trust them when it comes to your health when they are only loyal to cold hard cash?

Let’s take a look at the pages from these websites that appear when you search for Black seed oil.  

 

Medical News Today
 

As you can see above, this is not true. There are plenty of human studies.

Healthline

Healthline again mentions just a few of the many recognised benefits. It also makes the false claim that there is a lack of human studies. It then goes on to list some potential dangers of Black seed oil.

 

It claims that black seed oil may interfere with certain medications, but does not offer any studies to back up these claims. We could not find any. It also says that too much black seed oil can be harmful to your liver and kidneys. But if you click the study they reference, there is no evidence for this at all. The study shows that black seed oil can protect the liver from pharmaceutical induced damage, the complete opposite of what Healthline are claiming. This is a multi-million dollar company that many people trust for their health information! We cannot find a single piece of evidence of anybody being harmed by black seed oil. 

WebMD

WebMD is a huge money-making operation. It was recently acquired for $2.8 billion and makes its money from pharmaceutical industry advertising. When it comes to Black seed oil, it only mentions a handful of the benefits and again falsely claims that there is a lack of evidence:

If people were to know the truth about natural health, the pharmaceutical companies whose advertising revenue WebMD relies on would lose money. Perhaps this is why they promote false negative information about natural remedies.

RxList

If you read the underlined text it says that the patent does not mean black seed oil has been effective for boosting the immune system. But if you take the time to examine the patent, you can find evidence it does indeed have an immune-boosting effect. The use of the phrase, “don’t be mislead” is ironic given that this RxList article itself is misleading. 

Later in the article, RxList warns against taking black seed oil with immune-suppressing drugs (drugs which weaken the immune system to stop cases where it is attacking the body in error).  The hypocrisy here is incredible. It claims that black seed oil does not boost the immune system, but then warns against using it with immune-suppressing drugs (implying that it will boost the immune system). 

More Evidence Needed?

What you will often find when reading about a natural health product is the phrase ”more evidence is needed”. What people do not realise, is that to carry out the type of trials that allow drug companies to legally claim that “x product cures y” disease costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Since there is no money to be made from products that literally grow on trees, these studies will never be done. However, doctors routinely give pharmaceutical drugs for diseases they have not been proven to treat, this is known as “off label” prescribing. Also, a lot of the time, when you read “more evidence is needed” it simply isn’t true. It is that the evidence is being ignored, as with the examples above. 

So, what can we do about it? We just have to learn how to take advantage of this information age by being aware that the easily-available information may not be true, but that the useful information is available if we know where to look. 

The Black seed oil study described above comes from a freely available Journal called Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine which can be found here. We have found that, with Black cumin seed, much of the research is comes from parts of the world where the herb has been traditionally grown and used. In these countries, there is less influence of Western Pharmaceutical interests so it is more likely that researches will study natural treatments. While Western researches are studying black cumin seed, they are doing it to try and find substances that can be synthesized to create a blockbuster cancer drug. We have noticed that in other parts of the world, there is a genuine desire to understand how natural substances can cure us.  

As with everything, to get the knowledge that we need requires broadening our horizons. Be aware that Google is a money-making business, not a repository of information, and also be aware that the pharmaceutical industry is immensely powerful and has an interest in downplaying the benefits of natural medicine. More importantly, trust your own instincts, common sense, and judgement. If something has been used for thousands of years that should be more trustworthy than what a handful of greedy, billionaire-owned companies have to say!

We recommend stopping relying on Google. We have found that the Russian search engine, Yandex, offers more accurate information when it comes to holistic health. While searching for black cumin seed on Yandex, we even came across articles such as, “The Pharmaceutical Industry Can’t Handle Black cumin seed”.  and “Why Aren’t Hospitals Treating Cancer with Black Seed Oil”  These type of articles are getting removed from Google due to corporate influence. They don’t want people to know about natural remedies because they threaten pharmaceutical industry profits. 

There are many medical journals where scientific studies can be found for natural medicines. For example, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine.  Instead of reading second-hand – often incorrectly reported – information in articles, why not go to the source and read the scientific journals themselves. You can search using https://www.sciencedirect.com/  or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ 

At Neter Vital, we offer consultations based on our extensive ancient and modern knowledge, untainted by big business interests. We would never encourage anybody to take anything that they do not need. Please feel free to pop in for a chat any time. 
 

Our black seed oil is made from 100% pure cold-pressed organic black cumin seeds from selective farms. It has a very high concentration of active ingredients and our customers report remarkable results.