Santa Rosa, California (May 23, 2012) People want to maintain a healthy weight, and there are lots of beneficial ways to do it: exercise, whole foods diet and supplementation, proper stress relief, regular sleeping patterns. But a new study has highlighted an ancient ingredient for healthy fat metabolism that is, quite literally, right under our noses—black pepper.

Published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the study zeroes in on piperine, the component that makes pepper...