Can curcumin, a natural chemical in the spice turmeric, help you lose weight? Scientists suspect that it can, but they’re still testing it. They’ve already tried it out on animals and in laboratory cells and have found that it slows the growth of fat tissue.

“Weight gain is the result of the growth and expansion of fat tissue, which cannot happen unless new blood vessels form, a process known as angiogenesis,” says researcher Mohsen Meydani, director of the Vascular Biology Laboratory at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. “Based on our data, curcumin appears to suppress angiogenic activity in the fat tissue of mice fed high fat diets.”

Meydani continued, “It is important to note, we don’t know whether these results can be replicated in humans because, to our knowledge, no studies have been done.”

Meydani notes that studies have already shown that turmeric helps keep arteries healthy.