Kitchen Spice Could Help You Cut Body Fat and Increase Your Metabolism

One common kitchen spice could melt your body fat while increasing your lean muscle mass and metabolism.

Cardamom is used in cooking around the world for its warm, spicy and slightly sweet profile. However, many of us in the U.S. add this spice only to the odd gingerbread cookie or pumpkin pie.

But if the results of a new study from Texas A&M University and the National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition in Mexico is anything to go by, we might want to start adding more cardamom to our diets.

"What we found is that this small spice can burn calories and maintain body weight, while increasing appetite and food consumption," Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, a professor in horticulture and food science at Texas A&M, said in a statement.

In the study, published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, the researchers fed mice on diets containing either 0, 3, 6 or 12 percent cardamom seeds for 14 weeks. Over the course of the experiment, the mice fed on cardamom-rich diets gained less weight than the control group, despite eating slightly more. This was due to a decrease in body-fat content, along with an increase in lean muscle mass.

At a biochemical level, cardamom consumption increased the breakdown of fats and reduced the size of fatty deposits, preventing fat from accumulating in tissues. It also appeared to increase the concentration of mitochondria—the energy-producing powerhouses of the cell—in muscle cells and the liver. This increases the overall energy expenditure of the cell.

The researchers found that these effects were caused by changes in the brain that control appetite, energy expenditure and fat storage.

Previous studies have shown that cardamom has additional anti-inflammatory properties, suggesting that this spice can support numerous aspects of our overall health.

"There is a wide range of potential health products for cardamom and its naturally occurring compounds," Cisneros-Zevallos said. "Cardamom seeds, with this new functionality, can be used in different industries, including the sports industry, functional foods and dietary supplements to favor the production of healthier foods."

But how much cardamom do we need to eat to see these beneficial effects?

The study's authors say that the average adult would need to consume at least eight to 10 cardamon pods every day, which is a lot.

Also, this study was performed only on mice, so more work still needs to be done to determine whether similar results would be seen in humans.