Two clear laboratory glass vials beside a matte black bottle of oil on a pale marble surface in clean bright light

Black Seed Oil and the Kidneys: What the Research Shows

By Yusuf Elsayed, Founder of Sidr & Stone · Last updated 25 August 2026

If you are searching for black seed oil and the kidneys, you are most likely either living with a kidney diagnosis or worried about one — and you deserve a straight answer rather than a hopeful one. Here it is. Black seed oil (Nigella sativa) is a food supplement, not a treatment for any kidney condition. The human evidence consists of two small trials, neither of them large enough or long enough to show that it changes what happens to a person's kidneys, and both measuring blood and urine chemistry rather than whether anybody avoided dialysis. If you have chronic kidney disease, the most useful sentence on this page is this one: speak to your nephrologist before you take anything, including this.

What follows sets out what those two trials actually measured, why a change in creatinine or GFR across twelve weeks is not the same thing as a kidney benefit, and the specific risks that supplements carry when kidney function is reduced. Quality enters this article in only one way — as the question of knowing what is in a bottle. Our own cold-pressed Ethiopian black seed oil is independently verified at 2.67% thymoquinone by Analytice, an ISO-accredited French laboratory, on a per-batch basis (HPLC-UV), and the certificate is on our Quality Assurance page. For related reading, see our blood sugar guide and our side effects and safety guide.

The Short Answer

  • Black seed oil is a food supplement. It is not a medicine, it is not a treatment for kidney disease, and it is not something to start on your own initiative if you have a kidney diagnosis.
  • The human research on black seed oil and kidney function amounts to two small trials. One, by Ansari and colleagues in 2017, was open-label — nobody was blinded and there was no placebo. The other, by Rahmani and colleagues in 2022, was double-blind and placebo-controlled but enrolled 46 people on haemodialysis for twelve weeks.
  • Both trials measured blood and urine chemistry. Neither measured whether anybody's kidney disease progressed more slowly, whether anybody avoided dialysis, or whether anybody lived longer.
  • Serum creatinine, blood urea, GFR and urinary protein are surrogate markers. Movement in them across twelve weeks is not a demonstrated clinical benefit — and because GFR is normally calculated from creatinine rather than measured directly, a fall in one and a rise in the other are largely a single finding described twice.
  • A 2023 overview of the wider Nigella sativa literature by Li and colleagues graded 110 outcome indicators under GRADE and rated 88 of them very low certainty. That is the honest state of this evidence base.
  • Supplements carry particular risks when kidney function is reduced: clearance is altered, interactions with blood-pressure, glucose-lowering and anticoagulant medicines are real, and most herbal preparations have never been studied in chronic kidney disease at all.
  • Two published case reports describe acute kidney injury following black seed oil or Nigella sativa ingestion. "Natural" is not a synonym for harmless.

What the Human Research Actually Consists Of

Two trials. That is the entire human evidence base on black seed oil and kidney function, and both are worth knowing in detail — including their limitations, which are substantial.

Paper clipboard with blank chart paper beside a stethoscope on a wooden desk in warm directional light

The 2017 Ansari trial

The most-cited human study here is Ansari, Nasiruddin, Khan and Haque (2017), published in the Saudi Journal of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation (28(1), 9–14) by a team at J.N. Medical College and Hospital, Aligarh Muslim University. Patients with chronic kidney disease at Stage 3 and Stage 4 arising from diabetic nephropathy were randomised into two groups. One group received conservative management of diabetic nephropathy only; the other received conservative management and Nigella sativa oil once daily for twelve weeks. Blood glucose, a full haemogram and kidney function tests were taken at 0, 6 and 12 weeks.

The researchers reported a fall in blood glucose, serum creatinine, blood urea and 24-hour total urinary protein, and a rise in glomerular filtration rate, 24-hour total urinary volume and haemoglobin, in the supplemented group compared with the control group.

Now the limitations, which are the part most coverage skips. The trial was open-label: neither the patients nor the people assessing them were blinded, and there was no placebo arm. In a trial whose endpoints are laboratory values and whose participants all know which group they are in, that is a serious weakness rather than a technicality. The published abstract does not state how many patients were enrolled, does not report effect sizes, and does not state how large the between-group differences were in absolute terms. And it has not been replicated in the nine years since. One unblinded trial reporting movement in the direction its authors hoped for is a reason to run a better trial. It is not a finding anybody should act on.

The 2022 haemodialysis trial

The second human trial is better designed and far less often cited. Rahmani, Niknafs, Naseri, Nouri and Tarighat-Esfanjani (2022), publishing in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, randomised 46 people with diabetes receiving haemodialysis to Nigella sativa oil or a paraffin-oil placebo for twelve weeks, double-blind. The same group had published a protocol paper in Trials which stated plainly that there was no evidence the plant was safe in haemodialysis patients — which is precisely why the trial was run.

What the completed trial measured was biochemistry: superoxide dismutase, malondialdehyde, total antioxidant capacity, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, HbA1c, fasting blood sugar and insulin. After adjustment for covariates, the between-group differences in all of those except insulin were reported as statistically significant. The researchers also recorded no notable side effects across the twelve weeks.

Two things follow, and they pull in opposite directions. This is the only blinded, placebo-controlled human data that exists, and it reported no notable adverse events — genuinely reassuring as far as it goes. But 46 people over twelve weeks cannot establish safety in a population with no renal clearance, and what it measured were laboratory markers of oxidative stress and glucose control. It did not measure kidney function, and it did not measure anything that happened to the patients themselves.

Why Creatinine, Urea and GFR Are Not the Same as a Kidney Benefit

This section decides how everything above should be read, and it is where most writing on this topic goes wrong.

Serum creatinine, blood urea, estimated glomerular filtration rate and urinary protein are surrogate markers. They are measured because they are cheap, quick and correlate with kidney function — not because they are the thing anybody actually cares about. What patients and nephrologists care about are clinical endpoints: whether kidney disease progresses, whether someone reaches dialysis or transplantation, whether they have a cardiovascular event, whether they live longer. No trial of black seed oil has measured any of those.

A second point is worth understanding, because it makes one result look like several. Estimated GFR is not usually measured directly; it is calculated from serum creatinine together with age and sex. So when a trial reports that creatinine fell and GFR rose, that is largely a single measurement described twice — not two independent confirmations of the same conclusion.

And a third. Creatinine is produced by muscle and is affected by diet, hydration, muscle mass and illness. Twelve weeks is a short window in a disease that unfolds across years, and short-term movement in a marker sensitive to several non-kidney variables is exactly the kind of signal that regularly fails to survive a larger, longer, blinded trial. Medicine is full of interventions that shifted a surrogate marker in the encouraging direction and then made no difference — occasionally made things worse — once clinical outcomes were finally measured.

None of this makes the Ansari result worthless. It means the accurate description of it is "an unreplicated observation in a surrogate marker". The accurate description is not "black seed oil improves kidney function", and we are not going to write that sentence, because it is not true.

Animal Research and Proposed Mechanisms

Tall clear glass of water beside a matte black bottle of oil on a pale linen surface in soft natural light

Animal models of drug and toxin injury

Alongside those two human trials sits a much larger body of animal work, gathered in reviews such as Hannan and colleagues (2021) in Nutrients. Reported findings include:

  • Cisplatin models: in rodents, pre-treatment with Nigella sativa has been reported to blunt the rise in serum creatinine and urea caused by this chemotherapy drug
  • Anti-tuberculosis drug models: co-administration has been reported to alter kidney-function markers in animals given anti-TB drugs
  • Heavy-metal models: reduced markers of kidney damage from cadmium, mercury and lead exposure in animals
  • Radiation models: reduced markers of oxidative stress and tissue damage in irradiated animals

These are animal experiments, generally at amounts far above anything a person would consume, generally given before the injury rather than after it, and in animals bred for uniformity. They tell you the compound is biologically active and worth studying. They tell you nothing about what happens in a human kidney, and no reader should take them as evidence of anything that will happen to them.

Mechanisms researchers propose

Where researchers offer an explanation, these are the pathways most often discussed. All of it is laboratory and animal work.

Inflammatory signalling

Chronic inflammation is one driver of progressive kidney damage. In laboratory research, thymoquinone has been described as suppressing NF-κB activation and pro-inflammatory signals such as TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1β. A pathway modulated in cell culture is a reason to investigate, not a clinical result.

Antioxidant activity

The kidneys are metabolically active and vulnerable to oxidative stress. Thymoquinone has been described in the literature as both scavenging free radicals directly and upregulating endogenous enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and catalase. The 2022 haemodialysis trial measured some of those markers in people; it did not establish what they meant for anybody's kidneys.

Blood pressure

Hypertension is, after diabetes, one of the leading contributors to chronic kidney disease, which is why blood pressure appears in kidney-adjacent research at all. Black seed oil has been studied in that context — and that is a reason for caution rather than enthusiasm, because anybody already taking antihypertensive medication has a genuine interaction to discuss with their doctor.

Glucose metabolism

Diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause of chronic kidney disease globally. Black seed oil has been studied in the context of insulin sensitivity, HbA1c and fasting glucose — again, a reason for caution if you take glucose-lowering medication. Our blood sugar guide covers that research and its limits in more detail.

Renal haemodynamics

Some animal studies have reported effects on the pressure dynamics within the glomeruli, which researchers have linked to hyperfiltration. That is animal haemodynamics, and nothing more.

Fibrosis

Established kidney damage progresses through scarring. Some laboratory work has examined whether Nigella sativa compounds influence fibrotic processes in renal tissue. This is preclinical work, and fibrosis in a dish is not fibrosis in a person.

Stepping back from all of it: a 2023 overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses by Li and colleagues in Frontiers in Nutrition assessed the Nigella sativa literature as a whole and graded 110 outcome indicators under GRADE. Five came out as moderate certainty, seventeen as low, and 88 as very low. The same overview rated fifteen of the twenty included meta-analyses as critically low methodological quality. That is the field, described honestly.

Why Supplements Carry Specific Risks When Kidney Function Is Reduced

This section matters more than any of the research above, and it is usually the part that is missing.

Reduced kidney function changes the rules. Compounds and their metabolites that a healthy kidney clears without difficulty can accumulate when filtration is impaired, so an amount that is unremarkable in a healthy adult is not automatically unremarkable in someone at Stage 4. Nobody has characterised how the constituents of black seed oil behave in impaired renal function, for the simple reason that the study has not been done.

Several further points apply across the supplement category, and they apply here:

  • Potassium and fluid. People with advanced chronic kidney disease are frequently on potassium and fluid restrictions. Any plant-derived product whose mineral content is not declared is worth clearing with a renal dietitian rather than assuming.
  • Contaminant load. Herbal products are not tested before sale the way medicines are. Heavy-metal contamination and solvent residues from poor extraction are documented problems across the category, and a kidney with reduced clearance is the organ least able to deal with them.
  • Interactions are the rule, not the exception. People with chronic kidney disease typically take several medicines at once. The interactions worth naming here are with antihypertensives, glucose-lowering drugs, anticoagulants and antiplatelets, and immunosuppressants after transplantation.
  • Most herbal preparations have never been studied in chronic kidney disease at all. Absence of reported harm in a population nobody has studied is not evidence of safety.
  • Two published case reports involve kidney injury. Arslan and colleagues (2013) described acute renal failure associated with Nigella sativa in a diabetic patient; Sener and colleagues (2024) described rhabdomyolysis, acute kidney injury and liver toxicity following black seed oil ingestion.

None of that makes black seed oil uniquely hazardous. It makes it a supplement — a category that anybody with kidney disease should treat with the same seriousness as a new prescription, because from the kidney's point of view that is what it is.

What Black Seed Oil Is Not

Open paper notebook with a pen and a small ceramic mug on a wooden table in warm afternoon daylight
  • Not a treatment for chronic kidney disease. There is no evidence that it treats, manages, slows or reverses any kidney condition.
  • Not a substitute for dialysis or transplantation in end-stage renal disease.
  • Not a treatment for acute kidney injury, which is a medical emergency requiring hospital care.
  • Not a substitute for prescribed medication. ACE inhibitors, ARBs and SGLT2 inhibitors carry clinical-outcome trial data. Black seed oil does not.
  • Not something to begin on your own if you have any diagnosed kidney condition.
  • Not a reason to delay medical assessment. Changes in urination, swelling, persistent fatigue or high blood pressure warrant a GP appointment, not a supplement decision. Function lost to a delayed diagnosis does not come back.

Speak to a Nephrologist First — and What to Tell Them

If you have a kidney diagnosis, this is not a formality. Kidney care is where a supplement decision is most likely to collide with something that matters, and a nephrology team cannot account for what it does not know about.

If you have chronic kidney disease

Tell your nephrologist about everything you take or are considering taking, including this, and let them decide. Do not start anything between appointments on the strength of an article — including this one. The research described above is not a reason to take black seed oil; it is context for a conversation with the person who has your blood results in front of them.

If you are on dialysis

Do not take black seed oil without explicit approval from your nephrology team. The only relevant trial enrolled 46 people for twelve weeks, and the protocol paper behind it began from the stated position that safety in this population was not established.

If you have had a kidney transplant

Black seed oil may interact with immunosuppressive medication including ciclosporin, tacrolimus and mycophenolate. Transplant recipients should not begin any supplement without explicit transplant-team approval, because the consequences of disturbed immunosuppressant levels are graft rejection or drug toxicity.

If you have diabetes or high blood pressure

Both are leading contributors to kidney disease, and both are treated with medicines where an additive effect is a genuine concern. Speak to your GP before starting anything, monitor as they advise, and never adjust a prescribed dose yourself.

If you have a family history but no diagnosis

There is no evidence that black seed oil prevents kidney disease, and we would not suggest it as a preventive. What does have evidence behind it is blood pressure control, glucose control and regular monitoring. Ask your GP about screening.

If you have no kidney concerns at all

Black seed oil is used as an everyday food supplement, and the published literature has not flagged a pattern of kidney harm in healthy adults at food-supplement amounts — though the case reports below are a reminder that individual reactions occur. That is a statement about the absence of a signal, not the presence of a benefit. There is no evidence of a long-term kidney benefit in people, and we are not going to imply one.

Critical Safety Considerations

Two published case reports of kidney injury

Most research on this topic has looked for protective effects rather than harm, which makes the harm reports easy to miss. Arslan and colleagues reported a case of acute renal failure associated with Nigella sativa in a diabetic patient in the Journal of Integrative Medicine in 2013. Sener and colleagues reported rhabdomyolysis, acute kidney injury and liver toxicity following black seed oil ingestion in Toxicon in 2024. Two case reports cannot tell you how common this is. They can tell you that it happens, that more is not better, and that anybody whose kidneys are already compromised has the least margin for error.

Medicines to raise specifically

  • Antihypertensives, including ACE inhibitors and ARBs. Additive blood-pressure effects are plausible and may require monitoring or adjustment by your prescriber — never by you.
  • Glucose-lowering medication, including insulin and sulfonylureas. Additive effects can cause hypoglycaemia.
  • Anticoagulants and antiplatelets. Black seed oil has been described as having antiplatelet activity, which matters in a chronic kidney disease population that frequently also carries cardiovascular disease and bleeding risk.
  • Immunosuppressants — ciclosporin, tacrolimus and mycophenolate — after transplantation.

Other cautions

  • Pregnancy: do not take supplemental amounts of black seed oil during pregnancy.
  • Breastfeeding: safety data is limited. Ask your GP.
  • Acute illness: stop during any acute illness, particularly anything affecting kidney function or hydration.
  • Surgery: stop at least two weeks before any scheduled procedure, and tell your surgical team what you have been taking.
  • New symptoms: changes in urination, swelling, unexplained muscle pain or unusually dark urine warrant medical assessment rather than a wait-and-see.

For fuller detail, see our side effects and safety guide.

Why We Will Not Print a Dose Here

Half teaspoon of dark amber oil beside a small clear glass of water on a pale linen surface

Articles on this topic almost always finish with a number. We are not going to give you one, and the reason is worth stating plainly.

The Ansari trial used a specific daily amount of Nigella sativa oil, given under medical supervision, with kidney function tested at three points across twelve weeks. Printing that number beside the condition it was studied in functions, in practice, as an instruction — readers copy it. We are not willing to hand a self-treatment protocol to somebody living with Stage 4 kidney disease, and no article should.

There is a second, more technical reason the number would not help even if we published it. Khaikin and colleagues (2022), writing in Nutrients, measured thymoquinone in eleven commercial Nigella sativa products and found it ranged from 3.08 to 809.4 mg per 100 g — a spread of more than 250-fold. The highest-testing retail product in that screen worked out at roughly 0.8% thymoquinone. A millilitre figure from a trial simply does not map onto a millilitre from an arbitrary retail bottle, because the two can differ by two orders of magnitude in the compound the research is actually about.

So if you have a kidney condition and you want to know whether black seed oil has any place in your life, the number you need is not in an article. It comes from the clinician managing your kidneys, if they think it belongs there at all.

For adults with no kidney concerns, black seed oil is commonly taken by the teaspoon with food as an ordinary supplement. That is a description of everyday use, not a recommendation to anybody managing a condition.

What Actually Makes a Difference to Kidney Outcomes

If you came here hoping to find something that genuinely changes what happens to kidneys, this is the honest list — and none of it is a supplement.

  • Blood pressure control. Sustained high blood pressure damages kidneys, and controlling it is among the best-evidenced interventions in nephrology.
  • Blood glucose control. Diabetes is the leading cause of chronic kidney disease worldwide.
  • Prescribed medication, taken as directed. ACE inhibitors, ARBs and SGLT2 inhibitors have clinical-outcome trial data behind them.
  • Careful use of NSAIDs. Regular ibuprofen and naproxen are a common and largely avoidable cause of kidney harm.
  • Not smoking.
  • Sensible salt intake, with protein intake guided by a renal dietitian if your function is reduced.
  • Fluid intake appropriate to your stage. Note that "drink more water" is the wrong advice for some people with advanced kidney disease or heart failure — which is exactly why this belongs to your clinician rather than to an article.
  • Regular monitoring if you are at risk. Early kidney disease is silent; it is found by a blood test, not by symptoms.

Set against that list, black seed oil is at most an optional food supplement with an interesting early research literature and no demonstrated clinical benefit. That is the whole of the honest claim.

Why Sidr & Stone — and Why Verification Is the Only Claim We Make

Everything above should make our position easy to predict. We are not going to tell you our oil does anything for kidneys, because nobody has shown that black seed oil does anything for kidneys. What we can tell you is precisely what is in the bottle — which, given the Khaikin findings, is not a trivial thing to know about any black seed oil.

  • Independently verified 2.67% thymoquinone, per batch
  • Tested by Analytice, an ISO-accredited French laboratory, by HPLC-UV, with a Certificate of Analysis you can actually see
Independent Analytice laboratory Certificate of Analysis confirming Sidr & Stone black seed oil at 2.67% thymoquinone
  • Organically grown Ethiopian highland Nigella sativa, selected after a 36-supplier evaluation. Organically grown, not certified organic — we do not hold a formal organic certificate and will not imply one
  • Cold-pressed below 40°C, which protects the heat-sensitive thymoquinone
  • 100% pure — a single ingredient, nothing added
  • Unrefined and unfiltered; natural fine sediment is normal
  • Bottled in matte black UV-protective glass
  • Halal certified, with 10% of profits given to charity
  • Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US

We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the strongest or the best, and we will certainly not tell you it is good for your kidneys. What we will say is that our thymoquinone figure is 2.67%, independently verified per batch, and the certificate is there for you to read. For a fuller walkthrough of what to look for on a label, see our guide to choosing a quality black seed oil.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is black seed oil good for the kidneys?

There is no good evidence that it is. The human research amounts to two small trials measuring blood and urine chemistry — one unblinded and never replicated, one double-blind in 46 haemodialysis patients across twelve weeks. Neither measured whether anybody's kidney disease progressed more slowly or whether anybody avoided dialysis. Black seed oil is a food supplement, not a treatment for any kidney condition, and if you have a kidney diagnosis this is a question for your nephrologist.

Can black seed oil cause kidney damage?

It has been reported. Two published case reports — Arslan and colleagues (2013) and Sener and colleagues (2024) — describe acute kidney injury following Nigella sativa or black seed oil ingestion, the second alongside rhabdomyolysis and liver toxicity. Case reports do not establish how common this is, but they do establish that it happens. Large amounts, poor-quality oils and already-reduced kidney function all narrow the margin for error.

Can I take black seed oil if I have chronic kidney disease?

That is a decision for your nephrologist — not for you alone, and not for us. The evidence in chronic kidney disease is a single small unblinded trial that measured surrogate markers, and kidney patients have interaction risks, altered clearance and monitoring needs that require specialist input. Do not self-manage chronic kidney disease with supplements.

Is black seed oil safe with kidney medication?

It depends entirely on the medication, and it is a question for your prescriber. The interactions worth raising specifically are with antihypertensives including ACE inhibitors and ARBs, with glucose-lowering medicines including insulin and sulfonylureas, with anticoagulants and antiplatelets, and with immunosuppressants after a transplant.

Does black seed oil help with diabetic nephropathy?

No trial has shown that it does. The 2017 Ansari trial studied this population and reported movement in kidney-function markers across twelve weeks, but it was open-label, had no placebo arm, has never been replicated, and measured surrogate markers rather than whether anybody's disease progressed. That is not a basis for taking it. Anybody with diabetic nephropathy should be guided by their nephrology team.

Can black seed oil reverse kidney damage?

No. Established structural damage in chronic kidney disease — glomerulosclerosis and fibrosis — does not generally reverse, whatever is taken. The Ansari trial reported changes in measured markers, and a change in a marker is not restored kidney tissue. Nothing in the published research supports the idea that black seed oil reverses kidney damage.

Is black seed oil safe if I am on dialysis?

Safety in dialysis patients is not established. One double-blind trial in 46 people on haemodialysis reported no notable side effects across twelve weeks, which is reassuring only within those limits — a small sample, a short window, and a population with no renal clearance. Do not take black seed oil on dialysis without explicit approval from your nephrology team.

Is black seed oil a medicine?

No. Black seed oil is a food supplement, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history and an interesting body of research around thymoquinone, and can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine — but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any black seed oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.

Final Thoughts

What the evidence actually amounts to

Black seed oil and the kidneys is a topic with far more written about it than is known about it. Strip away the animal studies and the mechanism diagrams and what remains in humans is two small trials, twelve weeks each, measuring blood and urine chemistry. One was unblinded and has never been repeated. The other was well designed but tiny, and measured markers of oxidative stress and glucose control rather than kidney function. The 2023 GRADE overview of the wider literature — 88 of 110 outcomes rated very low certainty — is the fairest one-line summary of where Nigella sativa research currently sits.

What that means if you have kidney disease

It means the research is not a reason to start taking anything. Chronic kidney disease is a condition in which self-management is genuinely dangerous, in which the damage done by a delayed nephrology appointment is permanent, and in which frightened people are routinely sold hope. We would rather lose the sale than take part in that. If you have a kidney diagnosis, the useful action from this page is a conversation with your nephrologist — about your medicines, your monitoring, and anything at all you are taking.

Where quality does come in

If you use black seed oil as an everyday food supplement and your doctor has no objection, then the only thing we can honestly offer is that you will know what is in the bottle. Given that measured thymoquinone content across commercial products spans more than 250-fold, that turns out to matter.

Our cold-pressed Ethiopian black seed oil is independently verified at 2.67% thymoquinone by Analytice on a per-batch basis — from organically grown Ethiopian highland seed selected after evaluating 36 suppliers, cold-pressed below 40°C, unrefined and unfiltered, and bottled in matte black UV-protective glass, with fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.

Sidr & Stone matte black glass bottle of Ethiopian black seed oil beside a clear glass of water and fresh green herbs on a pale marble surface

Shop Sidr & Stone Cold-Pressed Ethiopian Black Seed Oil — Verified 2.67% Thymoquinone →

References
1. Ansari ZM, Nasiruddin M, Khan RA, Haque SF. (2017). Protective role of Nigella sativa in diabetic nephropathy: A randomized clinical trial. Saudi Journal of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation, 28(1), 9–14. PMID 28098097. DOI 10.4103/1319-2442.198093.
2. Rahmani A, Niknafs B, Naseri M, Nouri M, Tarighat-Esfanjani A. (2022). Effect of Nigella sativa oil on oxidative stress, inflammatory, and glycemic control indices in diabetic hemodialysis patients: a randomized double-blind, controlled trial. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2022, 2753294. PMID 35463059. DOI 10.1155/2022/2753294.
3. Rahmani A, Maleki V, Niknafs B, Tavakoli-Rouzbehani OM, Tarighat-Esfanjani A. (2022). Effect of Nigella sativa supplementation on kidney function, glycemic control, oxidative stress, inflammation, quality of life, and depression in diabetic hemodialysis patients: study protocol for a double-blind, randomized controlled trial. Trials, 23(1), 111. PMID 35120579. DOI 10.1186/s13063-021-05917-y.
4. Arslan E, Sayin S, Demirbas S, Cakar M, Somak NG, Yesilkaya S, Saglam K. (2013). A case study report of acute renal failure associated with Nigella sativa in a diabetic patient. Journal of Integrative Medicine, 11(1), 64–66. PMID 23464648. DOI 10.3736/jintegrmed2013010.
5. Sener K, Cakir A, Yesiloglu O, Altug E, Guven R, Korkut S. (2024). Rhabdomyolysis and acute kidney injury after consumption of black seed oil. Toxicon, 245, 107787. PMID 38844000. DOI 10.1016/j.toxicon.2024.107787.
6. Khaikin E, Chrubasik-Hausmann S, Kaya S, Zimmermann BF. (2022). Screening of thymoquinone content in commercial Nigella sativa products to identify a promising and safe study medication. Nutrients, 14(17), 3501. PMID 36079759. DOI 10.3390/nu14173501.
7. Li Z, Wang Y, Xu Q, Ma J, Li X, Yan J, Tian Y, Wen Y, Chen T. (2023). Nigella sativa and health outcomes: an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Frontiers in Nutrition, 10, 1107750. PMID 37057067. DOI 10.3389/fnut.2023.1107750.
8. Hannan MA, Rahman MA, Sohag AAM, Uddin MJ, Dash R, Sikder MH, et al. (2021). Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.): a comprehensive review on phytochemistry, health benefits, molecular pharmacology, and safety. Nutrients, 13(6), 1784. PMID 34073784. DOI 10.3390/nu13061784.
9. Tavakkoli A, Tavakkoli A, Mahdian V, Razavi BM, Hosseinzadeh H. (2017). Review on clinical trials of black seed (Nigella sativa) and its active constituent, thymoquinone. Journal of Pharmacopuncture, 20(3), 179–193. PMID 30087794. DOI 10.3831/KPI.2017.20.021.

Disclaimer: This article describes what published research on black seed oil and kidney function has investigated at the time of writing; research findings may change, and readers should check current sources. Black seed oil is a food supplement, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to take black seed oil for any kidney condition. Anybody with diagnosed chronic kidney disease, on dialysis, with a kidney transplant, or taking any prescribed medication should speak to their nephrologist or prescriber before taking any supplement. If you have symptoms that might suggest a kidney problem — changes in urination, swelling, persistent fatigue, unexplained muscle pain, or high blood pressure — seek medical assessment rather than relying on a supplement. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.

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