Ribes nigrum L. · supplement
Evidence tier: insufficient
A premium GLA source, supports skin, hormonal balance, and joint comfort.
Black currant seed oil is roughly 16 percent gamma linolenic acid, alongside linoleic acid, alpha linolenic acid and oleic acid. The proposed mechanism is that GLA is elongated to dihomo gamma linolenic acid, which feeds the series 1 prostaglandin pathway and shifts the balance away from pro inflammatory eicosanoids, thereby calming inflammation and supporting the skin barrier. This is textbook biochemistry and it is not in doubt as chemistry. What is in doubt is whether it does anything measurable in a person, and the Cochrane result on the wider GLA class says it does not, at least for eczema. Present this as a mechanism that exists on paper and failed on the ward.
Insufficient. Black currant seed oil is sold as a premium source of gamma linolenic acid (GLA), and the honest way to assess it is to ask what happened when GLA oils as a CLASS were tested properly. They failed. The Cochrane review of oral GLA oils for eczema (Bamford and colleagues 2013, PMID 23633319) pooled 27 studies in 1,596 participants covering evening primrose oil and borage oil, the two best studied GLA oils, and concluded: 'Oral borage oil and evening primrose oil lack effect on eczema; improvement was similar to respective placebos used in trials. Oral BO and EPO are not effective treatments for eczema.' The authors went further and said further studies would be hard to justify. That is a negative finding with narrow confidence intervals, not an absence of data, and it is the single most relevant piece of evidence for a GLA supplement sold for skin. Black currant seed oil itself has been tested only in a handful of small trials and they do not rescue it. In rheumatoid arthritis, a 24 week randomised placebo controlled trial reported some reduction in signs of synovitis, but the OVERALL clinical response, the prespecified composite, was NO BETTER than placebo. For preventing atopic dermatitis in newborns, a randomised double blind placebo controlled trial of maternal supplementation found a difference at 12 months (33 percent versus 47.3 percent) that WAS NOT SUSTAINED at 24 months, and in any case that is a pregnancy intervention, not a consumer skin supplement. For PMS there is no randomised trial of black currant seed oil at all; what exists is observational work showing that women with PMS tend to have lower GLA levels, which is a correlation and not a treatment result. There is no EMA monograph and no NCCIH position. The fatty acid chemistry is real and well characterised. The clinical benefit is not.
500 to 2000 mg daily with food.
Mild antiplatelet effect at high doses.
Pregnancy: caution
Breastfeeding: caution
Active compounds: gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), linoleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid, oleic acid, stearidonic acid
Remedies using Black Currant Seed Oil · Browse by body system · Check it against what you take
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.