Growing up in India, I have always enjoyed spicy food. The hotter, the food, more I relish it. However, at it times I have been called a weirdo as I added Tabasco to French fries to get a kick or eat fried Jalapenos with Taco Bell’s FIRE sauce!
Once I was at a Thai restaurant, I asked the server to make it real hot. It was a really freaking fiery hot. I am talking runny nose, sweating, red face and slowly losing my ability to even speak! It was horrible, even though my friends found it really funny. I suffered it the next day again by feeling the fire in the hole! Some of you may be able to relate with it.
Furthermore, isn’t it astonishing that spices were the main inspirations behind the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama. Quest for spices was one of the earliest reasons for globalization. British took many exotic spices from the East. Not sure what they did with that, since Fish and chips is 10 out of 10 on a scale of blanditude!
I recently became intrigued by the question: if it burns so good: why do Humans, ok some humans like spicy food? Do animals like spicy hot food?
Eating food that contains capsaicin, a chemical in chili peppers stimulate certain receptors in our tongue. It tricks our brain into thinking that our mouth is on fire. This stress causes our brain to release Endorphins- the happy hormones! This is why so many people associate hot foods with joyful feelings!
The second reason likely is that eating spicy hot foods is like a thrill seeking experience just like Bungee jumping, roller coasters or horror movies! It makes us feel alive with all that adrenaline rushing in the body.
Animals don’t like spicy foods. A recent animal study and the National Geographic showed that Humans and tree shrews are the only mammals that prefer spicy food.
As a gastroenterologist, I am often asked questions about spicy foods and if they can affect our digestive health.
Let me address this by answering few common questions/misconceptions about this subject:
1. Spicy foods can cause stomach ulcers: Hot foods don’t cause stomach ulcers. However, they can help worsen the pain or discomfort from the ulcers. Most common causes of ulcers are pain pills such as ibuprofen, aspirin or a bacterial infection called H pylori. Believe it or not, few studies on this subject revealed that capsaicin actually inhibits acid production in the stomach.
2. Hot foods will make hemorrhoids worse: Oh a few of us may have experienced that burning butt syndrome after a real spicy dinner! Italian researchers in 2006, randomly assigned people with large hemorrhoids to take a placebo pill or a pill with red hot chili powder! What a study! The participants had to rate the results of the pills on their hemorrhoid symptoms. Surprisingly, it caused no change on the hemorrhoid symptoms.
However, if a person has anal fissure the story is completely opposite. There was a significantly exaggerated burning pain in patients with anal fissure taking chili capsules as compared to the placebo group.
3. Spicy food may help us live longer: A population based study was conducted in 2015 to answer this question. Surprisingly, consumers of spicy foods 6 or 7 days a week had 14% relative risk reduction in total mortality.
4. Spicy foods can help you lose weight: Spicy foods can reduce appetite and increase energy expenditure! So in nutshell, yes they may help to shed a few pounds.
5. Spicy foods cause stomach pain: Spicy foods may not cause ulcers but they certainly can trigger abdominal discomfort or pain. This is especially true for patients with dyspepsia, irritable bowel syndrome, or inflammatory bowel disease such as crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. Additionally, folks that consume spicy foods greater than or equal to 10 times per week can have 92% higher chance of bowel discomfort (IBS) as opposed to those who never consumed spicy foods.
I also saw an article in Journal of Emergency Medicine about a man who ate ghost peppers as a part of some contest. He subsequently vomited so fiercely that he ruptured his food pipe. Admittedly, the rupture was secondary to vomiting and not a direct effect of hot peppers. But it was the peppers that triggered this aggressive vomiting.
Thus in conclusion, spicy foods are healthy but in moderation! And fellas don’t get spicy foods in your eyes!
I would like to end this post with a personal observation: Best part of ordering spicy food is that I don’t have to share it with my kids!
Do you like spicy foods? Why do you like it? How often do you eat it? Do you have any concerns or observations or stories about eating spicy food that you can share with me?
Thank you very much for listening or reading. Please comment, share and subscribe. Stay safe and keep smiling!
Educative and interesting.
As a layman one learns a lot from your blog
Thank you very much.