ArticleJournal of physiological anthropology2024
Alleviation of acute stress response by black pepper aroma administration.
Article in Journal of physiological anthropology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Synergistic Potential of Trikatu Essential Oil as an Aromatherapy Agent: A Chemical and Mechanistic Review.Drug design, development and therapy · 2025Review
- Effects of inhalingFrontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Assessing the usability of aromatic mouthwashes in alleviating physiological stress responses.Frontiers in oral health · 2024Article
- Alleviation of physiological stress response by apple aroma.Australian journal of psychology · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBlack pepper is one of the most popular spices globally. As black pepper essential oil has not yet been used in the context of aromatherapy, this study examined the effect of black pepper aroma on cardiac and peripheral autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity under stressful conditions using an olfactometer to administer aroma in a precise and controlled manner to ensure reproducibility.
methodsA within-participant design experiment was conducted with 20 male university students who performed a 30-min calculation task as a short-term stressor under three aroma conditions: black pepper, ginger, and dipropylene glycol (DPG) (scentless air as a control). Each aroma was sporadically delivered (first 20 s of each 1-min interval) with the olfactometer during the task. Electrocardiograms and skin conductance level (SCL) were measured to evaluate ANS's physiological acute stress response. Subjective evaluations for the given stressful task and impressions on the types of aromas were assessed.
resultsThe physiological acute stress response induced by the short-term stressor, which is characterized by the enhancement of the heart rate (HR) and SCL and decreases in the heart rate variability (HRV), was suppressed with black pepper: the increase in HR and reduction in HRV from the baseline were 38.9% (p = 0.048 when compared with DPG) and 32.9% smaller (p = 0.002 for multiple comparisons) than those in DPG, respectively, and the increase of SCL was 15.5% smaller (p = 0.005 for multiple comparisons) than that in ginger. However, there was no significant difference in subjective scores among the conditions.
conclusionAlthough black pepper is a stimulative agent, the study findings showed that black pepper aroma alleviated the physiological acute stress response, which can be beneficial in aromatherapy under stressful conditions.
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