Adding turmeric, cinnamon and other spices to a high fat meal will reduce the negative effects of eating high-fat foods by about 30 percent compared to a eating a meal without spices, according to U.S. researchers.

Researchers at the Penn State University discovered that eating high-fat meals will spike the body's levels of triglycerides in the blood. Eating meals rich with spices will reduce the levels of triglycerides.

"Normally, when you eat a high-fat meal, you end up with high levels of triglycerides, a type of fat, in your blood," explained Sheila West, associate professor of bio-behavioral health, who led the study. "If this happens too frequently, or if triglyceride levels are raised too much, your risk of heart disease is increased. We found that adding spices to a high-fat meal reduced triglyceride response by about 30 per cent, compared to a similar meal with no spices added," she told Science Daily.

West and her team prepared meals for two separate days for participants aged between 30 and 65 who were overweight but otherwise healthy. The researchers added two tablespoons of spices to the test meal serving of chicken curry, Italian herb bread and cinnamon biscuit. They added no spices to the identical control meal. Over the next 3 hours, blood was drawn from the 6 participants all of them men, every 30 minutes after the meal.

"In the spiced meal, we used rosemary, oregano, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, cloves, garlic powder and paprika," said Ann Skulas-Ray, postdoctoral fellow. "We selected these spices because they had potent antioxidant activity previously under controlled conditions in the lab."

The findings published in the Journal of Nutrition, found that those who ate the test meal had an increased antioxidant activity in the blood by 13 percent and insulin response decreased by roughly 20 percent.

"Antioxidants, like spices, may be important in reducing oxidative stress and thus reducing the risk of chronic disease," said West. Scientists believe that oxidative stress contributes to heart disease, arthritis and diabetes. The spicy meal had the same antioxidant dose of 40g of dark chocolate or 148ml of red wine.

West intends to find out if similar effects can be achieved with smaller quantities of spices.