Tahini: one four-hour study of its own, and an allergy worth knowing

The largest numbers on this page come from trials that never used tahini. In a meta-analysis of 10 randomised trials in people with type 2 diabetes, sesame supplementation lowered triglycerides by 37.61 mg/dl (95% CI -61.48 to -13.73) and total cholesterol by 32.69 mg/dl (95% CI -47.26 to -18.12). LDL cholesterol fell 28.72 mg/dl (95% CI -44.68 to -12.76) in the same pooling, and HDL cholesterol and body weight did not change. A second review pooled 13 trials in 731 people with diabetes over 6 to 12 weeks and found LDL cholesterol down 29.72 mg/dl (95% CI -47.88 to -11.55) and fasting glucose down 28.48 mg/dl. Those trials fed sesame seeds, sesame oil and sesamin to people who all had diabetes, so the numbers describe a supplement in a patient group rather than a spoonful of paste on bread. Effects that large for a food usually mean small trials. Tahini itself has been tested in people once. Twenty healthy men, mean age 28, ate a single 50 g portion after a 12-hour fast. Four hours later diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.010) and pulse rate (p = 0.002) had fallen, while flow-mediated dilatation (p = 0.022) and serum triglycerides (p < 0.001) had risen. That study had one arm, no control group and no randomisation, and it gives p values without effect sizes, so the 4-hour change cannot be separated from the effect of eating a meal of any kind. Nobody has run a randomised trial of tahini, and the researchers who ran that one named the gap themselves. One thing about tahini is settled without any trial. It is ground sesame and nothing else, and a 2026 review puts IgE-mediated sesame allergy at roughly 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the population. In children already suspected of that allergy, a lip touch of tahini was enough for 49 of 95 to react, and 1 of them had anaphylaxis from the touch.

What a real portion looks like

• In an international survey of 3271 adults during the 2020 lockdowns, men reported eating hummus and tahini more often than women did. — 3271 adults in seven languages, online convenience sample, 71.2% women, median age 30 to 31 years (n = 3271) Evidence C source
  Men reported significantly more sweetened or carbonated drinks, red meat, alcohol, legumes and hummus or tahini; amounts in grams were not measured

What your body absorbs

• In 16 postmenopausal women, 25 g of unground sesame seed for 4 weeks did reach the blood, raising serum n-6 fatty acids, urinary lignans and gamma-tocopherol, yet it moved no plasma lipid, so absorption and effect are separate questions for sesame paste. — 16 postmenopausal women, randomised crossover, food bars with 25 g unground sesame seed, flaxseed or a 12.5 g mix of both, 4 weeks per arm with 4-week washouts (n = 16) Evidence B source
  Serum n-6 fatty acids up with sesame seed (p < 0.05), urinary lignans up with all treatments (p < 0.05), serum gamma-tocopherol up with sesame seed (p < 0.0001); plasma lipids and most antioxidant markers unchanged
• Sesame press cake carried more phytic acid than soya bean meal, and in weaning piglets the ileal digestibility of its protein and amino acids was still much the same, apart from lysine and proline. — 15 weaning piglets, average weight 6.4 kg, randomised to a casein reference diet or casein mixed with sesame expeller or soya bean meal (n = 15 piglets) Evidence D source
  Sesame expeller higher in phytic acid, ether extract, neutral detergent fibre, methionine and arginine; apparent and standardised ileal digestibility of crude protein and amino acids similar to soya bean meal, except lower apparent digestibility of lysine and proline (p < 0.05)

What it does to your health

• In 20 healthy men, a single 50 g portion of tahini lowered diastolic blood pressure and pulse rate 4 hours later and raised flow-mediated dilatation, while serum triglycerides rose. — 20 healthy men, mean age 28 years, mean BMI 25.81 kg/m2, single 50 g dose after a 12-hour fast, measured 4 hours later (n = 20) Evidence C source
  Diastolic blood pressure down (p = 0.010), pulse rate down (p = 0.002), flow-mediated dilatation up (p = 0.022), serum triglycerides up (p < 0.001); no effect sizes or confidence intervals reported
• Pooling 13 trials with 731 people with diabetes over 6 to 12 weeks, sesame supplementation lowered LDL cholesterol by 29.72 mg/dl and fasting glucose by 28.48 mg/dl, and none of those 13 trials used tahini. — 731 participants with diabetes in 13 trials, intervention 6 to 12 weeks (n = 731) Evidence A source
  LDL-C WMD -29.72 mg/dl (95% CI -47.88 to -11.55), total cholesterol -32.76, triglycerides -33.46, fasting glucose -28.48, HbA1c -0.98; GRADE assessed
• In a meta-analysis of 10 randomised trials in type 2 diabetes, sesame supplementation lowered triglycerides by 37.61 mg/dl, total cholesterol by 32.69 mg/dl and LDL cholesterol by 28.72 mg/dl, and changed neither HDL cholesterol nor body weight. — patients with type 2 diabetes in 10 randomised controlled trials; observational studies and animal models excluded (n = 10 trials) Evidence A source
  TG WMD -37.61 mg/dl (95% CI -61.48 to -13.73), TC -32.69 (95% CI -47.26 to -18.12), LDL-C -28.72 (95% CI -44.68 to -12.76); no significant effect on HDL-C, body weight or BMI

Safety, limits and interactions

• Pooling global surveys of the raw material of tahini, aflatoxin B1 was present in 28.93% of sesame seed samples at a mean 28.302 micrograms per kg, and modelled exposure left the margin of exposure below the safety threshold of 10000 in nearly every country studied. — sesame seed samples worldwide, studies published between 1 January 2005 and 14 December 2025; exposure modelled for adults and children Evidence C source
  Pooled prevalence AFB1 28.93%, AFB2 18.09%, AFG2 10.80%, AFG1 9.95%; concentrations AFG1 32.290 and AFB1 28.302 micrograms per kg; margin of exposure below 10000 in nearly all countries, highest risk in Nigeria, Egypt and Pakistan
• A 2026 systematic review puts IgE-mediated sesame allergy at roughly 0.1 to 0.2% of the population, which is the risk that travels with every jar of tahini because tahini is ground sesame and nothing else. — general population, review of sesame nutrition, health effects and allergenicity Evidence C source
  IgE-mediated reactions in approximately 0.1 to 0.2% of the population
• A woman with confirmed sesame allergy had 2 severe systemic reactions after unknowingly eating tahini, and a double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge confirmed tahini as the cause. — 1 young woman with asthma and confirmed sesame allergy (n = 1) Evidence D source
  2 severe systemic reactions after inadvertent ingestion; allergy to tahini confirmed by double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge
• Australian surveillance for 2003 traced one of four outbreaks with international implications to Salmonella Montevideo in contaminated tahini imported from the Middle East. — national foodborne disease surveillance in Australia, 2003, covering 99 foodborne outbreaks affecting 1686 people Evidence C source
  One of four outbreaks with international implications was Salmonella Montevideo from contaminated tahini from the Middle East

What people believe that the data does not support

• Sesame is the ninth major food allergen in United States law, and since 1 January 2023 packaged foods must declare it, which is why tahini now appears by name on labels that used to hide it. — packaged foods and dietary supplements sold in the United States Evidence E source
  Mandatory allergen declaration for sesame from 1 January 2023 under the FASTER Act
• Tahini is a folk remedy for mouth ulcers in Jordan, used by 34 of 86 students (39.5%) who treated recurrent aphthous stomatitis with alternative remedies, and no trial has ever tested whether it works. — 530 University of Jordan students with a history of recurrent aphthous stomatitis; 267 had treated it, 86 of them with alternative remedies (n = 530) Evidence C source
  Of those using alternative treatments, 34 (39.5%) used tahini, 21 (24.4%) salt water rinses, 7 (8.1%) lemon; authors state randomised trials are needed to test tahini and sesame oil

Who this works differently for

• Among 49 children tested for suspected sesame allergy with a tahini-based oral food challenge, 21 (42.9%) reacted, and a skin prick test with tahini at a 7.5 mm cutoff predicted that reaction with 81% sensitivity and 85.7% specificity. — 49 children with suspected sesame allergy, all given an open tahini-based oral food challenge, single centre, retrospective (n = 49) Evidence C source
  21 of 49 (42.9%) positive challenge; tahini skin prick test cutoff 7.5 mm gave sensitivity 81% and specificity 85.7%; sesame specific IgE at 2.60 kU/L gave 66.7% and 82.1%
• Of 95 children given a tahini lip dose challenge before a full food challenge, 49 (51.6%) reacted at the lip stage and 1 of them had anaphylaxis from that touch alone. — 95 children with suspected sesame allergy, median age 2.4 years (IQR 1.3 to 4.9), retrospective review (n = 95) Evidence C source
  49 of 95 (51.6%) positive lip dose challenge including 1 anaphylaxis during it; among lip-positive children only 2 (4.2%) later had a negative food challenge, while 16 of 46 lip-negative children (34.8%) still reacted

What is still unknown

• Researchers who ran the only human trial of tahini say the literature on what tahini does to human health is a gap, and 4 years later the corpus still holds no randomised trial of it. — literature on tahini and human health as of the 2022 trial and as of this search Evidence C source
  Zero randomised controlled trials of tahini in the corpus; the single human trial is a 20-man single-arm 4-hour provocation, and everything stronger is about sesame seeds, sesame oil or sesamin rather than the paste

The bottom line

There is no USDA record for tahini, so the composition block on this page is empty and we cannot tell you the calories, the fat or the calcium in a spoonful. The only portion anyone has used in a study is the single 50 g dose of that 4-hour trial in 20 men. For how often people eat it, an online survey of 3271 adults during the 2020 lockdowns found men reporting hummus or tahini more often than women, from a convenience sample recruited through social media that recorded frequency and grouped tahini together with hummus. Nobody measured grams. Whether grinding matters is unanswered, which is awkward for a food that exists only as a grind. The nearest trial went the other way. In 16 postmenopausal women, 25 g a day of unground sesame seed for 4 weeks raised serum n-6 fatty acids (p < 0.05), urinary lignans (p < 0.05) and serum gamma-tocopherol (p < 0.0001), so the fats and lignans of whole seed do get absorbed. In that same small crossover trial plasma lipids and most markers of oxidative stress did not move, and the authors concluded that 25 g of unground seed is simply too little to shift them. No arm compared ground seed against unground, so the trial says nothing about what a paste adds. A feeding trial in 15 weaning piglets found sesame press cake higher in phytic acid than soya bean meal while ileal digestibility of protein and amino acids stayed similar, apart from lysine and proline (p < 0.05). Those are piglets eating defatted press cake rather than people eating an oily paste, and mineral absorption, which is where phytate usually matters, was not measured. Two contamination findings belong on the shelf next to the jar. A 2026 meta-analysis of sesame seed surveys published since 2005 found aflatoxin B1 in 28.93 percent of samples at a mean of 28.302 micrograms per kg. The modelled margin of exposure fell below the safety threshold of 10000 in nearly every country studied. For this measure a value below the threshold means concern rather than reassurance, and the highest modelled risk was in Nigeria, Egypt and Pakistan. Those were seeds and not finished tahini, the pooling mixes countries with very different controls, and roasting and grinding do not remove aflatoxin. Australian surveillance for 2003 separately traced an outbreak of Salmonella Montevideo to tahini imported from the Middle East, which is one traced outbreak in one annual report and not a rate. Allergy is the caution with the most measurement behind it. The 0.1 to 0.2 percent figure comes from primary studies with different diagnostic methods, and self-reported allergy always runs higher than challenge-confirmed allergy. Among 49 children referred for suspected sesame allergy, 21 (42.9 percent) reacted to a tahini-based food challenge, which is a referral rate and not a population rate. In that retrospective single-centre series a tahini skin prick test at a 7.5 mm cutoff predicted the reaction with 81 percent sensitivity and 85.7 percent specificity. In a second retrospective series of 95 such children, median age 2.4 years, 49 (51.6 percent) reacted to a lip dose of tahini and 1 had anaphylaxis during it. A negative lip dose did not clear a child either: 16 of the 46 lip-negative children (34.8 percent) still reacted at the full food challenge. Testing a child at home with a taste is therefore not a thing to do. Sesame became the ninth major allergen in United States law on 1 January 2023, and that rule covers packaged foods and supplements, which leaves restaurant and bakery tahini undeclared. That is exactly where a 2006 case report found it, in a woman with confirmed sesame allergy who had 2 severe systemic reactions after eating tahini unknowingly, with a double-blind placebo-controlled challenge confirming the cause. We found no study of tahini with any medicine, and nothing on pregnancy or breastfeeding. One belief travels with tahini and has never been tested. In Jordan it is a home remedy for mouth ulcers, used by 34 of the 86 students (39.5 percent) in one survey who treated recurrent mouth ulcers with alternative remedies, ahead of salt water rinses at 21 (24.4 percent). That survey recorded what people reach for and never whether it helped, and its authors asked for randomised trials of tahini for this purpose, which still do not exist. The shape of the gap is the honest summary of this page. There is no randomised trial of tahini, no USDA entry and no retention factor for it, no agency position on tahini itself, and nothing on how grinding changes what you absorb. What is strong here is about sesame in people with diabetes. What is about tahini is one 4-hour study in 20 men and a well-measured allergy. Eat it as the oily seed paste it is, and read labels if sesame is a problem in your house.

Sources

1. thr5-14 · cross-sectional survey
   Men reported consuming significantly more sweetened/carbonated drinks, red meat, alcohol, legumes, and hummus/tahini.
   Nutrients, 2021 · checked 2026-09-24
2. thr5-10 · randomised crossover trial
   In a randomized crossover study, 16 postmenopausal women supplemented their diets with food bars containing either 25 g unground flaxseed, sesame seed, or their combination (12.5 g each) (flaxseed+sesame seed bar, FSB) for 4 wk each, separated by 4 wk washout periods...In conclusion, fatty acids and lignans from unground seed in food bars are absorbed and metabolized; however, except for serum GT, the 25 g unground seed is inadequate to induce changes in plasma lipids and several biomarkers of oxidative stress.
   Mol Nutr Food Res, 2009 · checked 2026-09-24
3. thr5-11 · animal feeding trial
   SE contained greater quantities of ether extract, neutral detergent fibre, phytic acid, methionine and arginine than SBM...The AID and SID of CP and AA (except for lysine and proline) were similar in SE and SBM.
   J Anim Physiol Anim Nutr (Berl), 2015 · checked 2026-09-24
4. thr5-01 · non-randomised postprandial provocation
   Twenty healthy men with mean age of 28 y and mean BMI of 25.81 kg/m2 were included...A statistically significant decrease in diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.010) and pulse rate (p = 0.002) was observed 4 h after tahini consumption. Significant increases in serum triglycerides (p < 0.001) and flow-mediated dilatation were observed (p = 0.022) 4 h postprandially.
   J Hum Hypertens, 2022 · checked 2026-09-24
5. thr5-02 · systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials
   Thirteen studies, including 731 participants with intervention durations ranging from 6 to 12 weeks, were analyzed. Sesame supplementation significantly reduced fasting glucose (WMD = -28.48; 95 % CI: 37.66, -19.30; P < 0.001)
   Diabetes Metab Syndr, 2025 · checked 2026-09-24
6. thr5-03 · meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
   Our meta-analysis suggested a significant association between sesame supplementation and reduction in TG (weighted mean difference (WMD): -37.61 mg/dl, 95 % CI: -61.48, 13.73), TC (WMD: -32.69 mg/dl, 95 % CI: -47.26, 18.12), and LDL-C (WMD: -28.72 mg/dl, 95 % CI: -44.68, 12.76). However, our meta-analysis indicated that the supplementary intake of sesame had no significant effect on HDL-C, BW, and BMI in patients with T2DM.
   Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis, 2024 · checked 2026-09-24
7. thr5-04 · meta-analysis of contamination data
   The pooled prevalence order was AFB1 (28.93%) > AFB2 (18.09%) > AFG2 (10.80%) > AFG1 (9.95%), while concentration order was AFG1 (32.290 µg/kg) > AFB1 (28.302 µg/kg) > AFB2 (3.183 µg/kg) > AFG2 (0.131 µg/kg).
   Mycotoxin Res, 2026 · checked 2026-09-24
8. thr5-05 · systematic review
   However, despite its widespread culinary and industrial applications, sesame has emerged as a growing allergenic concern, eliciting IgE-mediated reactions in approximately 0.1-0.2 % of the population.
   Food Chem, 2026 · checked 2026-09-24
9. thr5-06 · case report
   We describe the case of a young woman with asthma and confirmed food allergy to sesame who had 2 severe systemic reactions after the inadvertent ingestion of tahini, a paste made with ground sesame seeds that is not generally known by physicians and patients as a sesame-containing food. A double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge confirmed the allergy to tahini in our patient.
   J Investig Allergol Clin Immunol, 2006 · checked 2026-09-24
10. thr5-13 · foodborne disease surveillance report
    Four outbreaks with international implications were reported: an outbreak of Salmonella in Montevideo involving contaminated tahini from the Middle East and three outbreaks of norovirus infection associated with imported Japanese oysters.
    Commun Dis Intell Q Rep, 2004 · checked 2026-09-24
11. thr5-09 · FDA regulation
    As of January 1, 2023, sesame must be labeled as an allergen on packaged foods and dietary supplements.
    FDA, FASTER Act: Sesame as the Ninth Major Food Allergen, 2023 · checked 2026-09-24
12. thr5-12 · cross-sectional survey
    Of those who used ATs, 34 (39.5%) used tahini, 21 (24.4%) used salt/salt and warm water mouthrinse, and 7 (8.1%) used lemon/lemon salt...Randomized clinical trials are needed to examine the potential usefulness of the commonly used ATs in this study such as tahini/sesame oil in the treatment of RAS.
    J Altern Complement Med, 2010 · checked 2026-09-24
13. thr5-07 · retrospective diagnostic accuracy study
    Of the 49 children included in the study, 21 (42.9%) had a positive tahini-based OFC result...An optimal cutoff value of 7.5 mm for a tahini SPT result yielded a sensitivity of 81% and a specificity of 85.7%.
    Allergy Asthma Proc, 2026 · checked 2026-09-24
14. thr5-08 · retrospective diagnostic study
    Overall, 95 children (median age: 2.4 years; IQR: 1.3-4.9) underwent tahini-LDC before OFC. Of these, 49 (51.6%) had positive LDC test results, including 1 patient who experienced anaphylaxis during LDC.
    Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol, 2025 · checked 2026-09-24
15. thr5-15 · non-randomised postprandial provocation
    However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the effect of tahini (sesame paste) consumption on human health.
    J Hum Hypertens, 2022 · checked 2026-09-24