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Black pepper (Piperine)
A black pepper extract standardised to at least 95% piperine, which we carry at 5 mg in three formulas, always next to curcumin. It has no authorised EU health claim and it is not there for an effect of its own: it raises how much of the curcumin you absorb. The same effect can reach many medicines, which is behind most of the warnings on this page.
WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SAY
Nothing. It has no authorised claim.
Piperine has no authorised health claim under Regulation (EU) 432/2012, and there is no EMA monograph for it either. Most botanical claims have sat on the European Commission's on-hold list since 2010, waiting for an EFSA assessment, but our file does not record a specific piperine claim among them. Either way, we make no health claim for it, and you will not find one on this page.Piperine has no authorised health claim under Regulation (EU) 432/2012, and no EMA monograph. Most botanical claims are on hold, waiting for an EFSA assessment. We make no health claim for it.
Our file describes how piperine slows two systems in your gut and liver that break things down before they reach your blood: an enzyme family called UGT and the liver enzyme CYP3A4. The study it leans on, Shoba 1998, measured around twenty times more curcumin in the blood when piperine was added. It also notes a mild warming effect. That is a change in how much of something else you absorb, not a health benefit, and not a food claim. It is a reason to put piperine next to curcumin, not a permission to promise anything.
WHAT WE USE
A black pepper extract, standardised to 95% piperine.
Black pepper is a plant, so the choice is not between salts but between preparations of its fruit. Our file credits the effect to one compound, piperine, and specifies an extract standardised to at least 95% of it. It dissolves in oil rather than water, it stays stable in a liquid, and it tastes bitter, which is part of why the amount is small.
The fruit of Piper nigrum, and the source of piperine. Our file documents no dose for the spice itself, so we will not tell you more than that.
An extract standardised to at least 95% piperine, made by Sabinsa. It is the form named in our regulatory file, and our file links it to the curcumin study it cites, Shoba 1998.
At least 95% piperine, BioPerine® or an equivalent with a purity analysis, at 5 mg in each of three formulas. It contains none of the allergens the EU requires on a label, though our file records Piper nigrum itself as an allergen outside that list.
There is no authorised claim for any form of piperine, standardised or not, so the standard is not a claim argument and we do not use it as one. It fixes how much piperine is in each dose, and our regulatory notes say that amount has to be declared on the label. Our piperine file is still a draft, pending review by a clinical professional, and it marks that review as relevant precisely because piperine can amplify medicines.There is no authorised claim for any form of piperine, standardised or not. The standard fixes what is in each dose. Our file is still pending clinical review.
WHERE IT APPEARS
Three of the twenty-nine carry piperine.
Always 5 mg, always next to 500 mg of curcumin and 2,000 mg of EPA + DHA, always at night, and preferably with dinner. Our piperine file says to take it with the ingredient it is meant to boost and with a meal, and our formula files add that curcumin with dinner is easier on the stomach. Systemic inflammation and Anti-inflammatory & recovery are pending clinical validation. Muscle damage (CK) is still in development.
THE CEILING
No official limit. Our cap: 20 mg a day.
EFSA has not set a tolerable upper intake level for piperine, and there is no EMA monograph to give a dose. Our dose note records 5 to 20 mg a day as the typical use next to curcumin, and 10 mg once a day as the recommended amount for adults. So the cap in our file is our own: 20 mg of pure piperine a day at most, added up across every formula. Each of ours carries 5 mg. The same note says it is not for use beyond 12 weeks without supervision, but the formulas that carry it run for 14 days at most. No limit is not the same as no risk.EFSA has not set an upper intake level for piperine, so the cap is ours: 20 mg a day across everything you take. Each formula carries 5 mg. No limit is not the same as no risk.
Each formula carries 5 mg, so the piperine total stays under our 20 mg cap even if more than one is in your plan. That is only the piperine: these three formulas carry the same 500 mg of curcumin and 2,000 mg of EPA + DHA each, and our file sets 1,000 mg a day as the ceiling for curcumin and 5,000 mg for EPA + DHA. Two of them together would already reach the curcumin ceiling and all three would pass both, so the piperine count is no reason to combine them. Our file says not to stack piperine with other absorption boosters, such as high-dose ginger or naringenin. An engine rule, R12, raises an alert on your piperine total and recalculates the safe maximum of the other ingredients, because it can raise their absorption by 200 to 2,000%. Its threshold as written, 200 µg a day, sits below a single 5 mg dose, so in practice it fires with any formula that carries piperine. Our file notes the rule rests on a small pharmacokinetic study, Shoba 1998, not on a regulatory limit.
Avoid therapeutic doses if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, and do not give it to children as a supplement. Avoid it if you have a stomach ulcer or reflux. Take care with liver disease, with anticoagulants and in cancer treatment with chemotherapy, where it can raise the toxicity of the treatment. If you take several medicines at once, every one of them has to be reviewed first, and the engine blocks piperine if you tell us you are on several medicines or on chemotherapy. The three formulas that carry it are not suggested at all if you take an anticoagulant, including warfarin-type medicines, or if you have liver disease: cases of liver injury have been reported with curcumin, and piperine raises how much of it you absorb. Our piperine note says not to use it beyond 12 weeks without supervision, but every formula that carries it is capped at 14 days, because the curcumin next to it is limited to two weeks by its EMA monograph, and our own rule limits Systemic inflammation and Muscle damage (CK) to four cycles a year. If symptoms last longer than two weeks, or get worse, see a doctor.
At high doses: stomach irritation, indigestion and heartburn. Our file says it is generally well tolerated at 5 to 10 mg. It is documented as releasing histamine in the body, which matters if you have histamine intolerance. It contains none of the allergens the EU requires on a label, though our file records Piper nigrum itself as an allergen outside that list, so avoid it if you react to black pepper. The label warning on file calls it an enzyme inducer that may reduce the effect of hormonal contraceptives, immunosuppressants, antiretrovirals and other medicines, and says to ask before combining. The rest of our file describes it as slowing those enzymes down, which raises medicine levels rather than lowering them. The two records disagree and that is pending review. Either way, the answer is the same: talk to a doctor first.
WHAT IT REACTS WITH
Four documented partners. Many medicines flagged.
Piperine is one of the 140 ingredients in our library, so it has 139 possible partners. Four of them are documented in our interaction table, in five entries, out of the 443 on file. Everything about medicines on this page comes from its own ingredient file, not from that table.
Curcumin: piperine slows how your liver clears it, around twenty times more reaching your blood, a pairing our table wants kept together at about 1 part piperine to 100 of curcumin, which is what our formulas carry. Resveratrol appears twice, with one entry putting its absorption up by about 230%. CoQ10: about 30% more absorbed, on weaker evidence. All three are low-severity synergies. CBD is a caution on dose, medium severity: more of it reaches your blood, and so can its side effects, so our table says to consider a lower CBD dose when piperine is present.
Its file also lists EGCG, beta-carotene and vitamin B6 as absorbed better next to piperine, and iron, zinc and selenium slightly so. Zinc sits next to it in Systemic inflammation and Muscle damage (CK). Ingredients with a narrow margin, such as yohimbine and synephrine, reach higher levels and carry more risk. The Anti-inflammatory & recovery file says omega-3, boswellia and piperine together raise the risk of bleeding. None of these pairs is in our interaction table yet.
Its file rates the risk as major for medicines with a narrow margin between a working dose and a harmful one, such as warfarin, digoxin, phenytoin, ciclosporin and theophylline, whose blood levels it can raise. Moderate to major: propranolol, carbamazepine and rifampicin. Moderate, on preliminary evidence: SSRI and SNRI antidepressants, lithium, diabetes medication and anticoagulants. Our pharmacokinetic file lists it as slowing CYP3A4 and CYP2D6, two liver enzymes that clear many medicines. None of this is in our drug interaction table yet. The app asks about medication before any formula carrying it is assigned.
443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%, and five of them involve piperine. The rest are not "safe", they are simply unchecked, and we would rather write that down than let the number look like a badge.443 of the 9,730 possible pairs in our library are documented, which is 4.55%, and five involve piperine. The rest are not safe, they are simply unchecked.
SOURCES
Everything on this page, with its reference.
Reviewed by VION nutrition team · last reviewed 16 September 2026Read the introduction to Black pepper →
140 INGREDIENTS · 64 IN USE TODAY
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