Experts Reveal What Spicy Food Actually Does Do Your Body
Some people love eating spicy food and always have hot sauce on hand. Others can't tolerate it at all. But what actually scientifically goes down in your body and mind when you eat spicy food? As it turns out, quite a lot! We were thrilled to discover that it can even help you get a date.
So to find out what it does to the body, we interviewed experts to tell us what happens when you chow down on spicy foods.
1. Hot Sauce Could Actually Cool You Down
Spicy foods may feel like the last thing you want to eat on a sweltering summer's day, but they can actually help cool you off, explains nutritionist Kim Yawitz, R.D., owner of Two Six Fitness in St. Louis, Missouri.
Some of the molecules that make food spicy (like capsaicin in peppers or allyl isothiocyanate in horseradish) activate sensory receptors on your tongue, which trick your brain into thinking you’ve eaten something dangerously hot, she explains.
“As your body perceives the heat from the spicy food, you begin to sweat—which eventually evaporates and cools your skin,” Yawitz says.
2. Spicy Foods Also Increase Your Blood Circulation
Still not convinced you should be generous with the hot sauce on a 100-degree day? Spicy foods can also increase blood circulation, Yawitz points out, which makes you sweat more and ultimately helps you feel more refreshed in hot weather.
3. Capsaicin Could Extend Your Life
Keep the doctor away with apples. But live a little longer with chili peppers. In a couple of large studies, adults who ate spicy foods more frequently had about a 13-14 percent lower risk of mortality than those who prefer their food a bit milder, Yawitz points out.
4. Spicy Foods Might Help You Lose Weight
Capsaicin slows down digestion in the upper gastrointestinal tract, which could help you feel fuller and eat fewer calories overall, Yawitz says. In animal studies, rodents given capsaicin doses comparable to how much humans might eat gained less body fat over time than rodents who didn’t receive capsaicin (even when eating the same number of calories).
5. Spicy Foods Could Also Be Associated With Obesity
Spicy foods may rev up your metabolism somewhat, but hot sauce isn’t exactly a weight loss miracle food. In some studies, adults who ate the most spicy foods had a greater risk of obesity than those who didn’t eat them as often.
“A lot of this probably comes down to diet quality—there’s a big difference between sprinkling some chili pepper on roasted veggies and chowing down on buffalo wings and kung pao chicken daily,” Yawitz says.
6. A Little Spice Might Improve Heart Health
Adding an extra dose of hot sauce may lead to higher HDL (good cholesterol) and lower LDL (bad cholesterol), according to a 2022 study, which showed a correlation between regularly indulging in spicy food and the reduction in heart disease and stroke, says dietitian and certified diabetes care and education specialist Sherri Berger, RDN. The capsaicin in chilis was found to be linked to the improved cholesterol numbers.
7. It Could Eliminate Your Sweet Tooth
Some studies also suggest that capsaicin promotes satiety. So there may be less of a desire for something sweet or fatty after chowing down on a spicy dinner, says Berger.
8. The Heat from Spicy Foods Really Does Make You Sweat
The scenario: You dunk your chip into a salsa, and it’s got some serious heat. You immediately feel beads of sweat dripping down your face. What gives? Capsaicin sends signals to your brain that you’re hot, hot, hot! The body turns on its cooling systems to fight the heat, explains Tanmeet Sethi, MD, integrative and functional medicine physician and author of Joy Is My Justice. That’s why you sweat and evaporate the heat, she says.
9. Your Tongue Tingles
Have you ever wondered why your tongue and lips tingle when you eat or drink something spicy?
This happens because the compounds in spicy foods attach to nerve receptors throughout the gastrointestinal tract including the mouth and become activated in response to heat, explains Los Angeles dietitian Vandana Sheth, RDN.
10. You Might Get a Runny Nose
Spicy foods can also stimulate the lungs and vessels to dilate, which promotes more mucus and may cause your nose to run, Sheth explains.
11. Spicy Foods Could Give You Heartburn
Spicy foods could irritate the gastrointestinal tract and lead to things like heartburn, acid reflux, and stomach pain, explains Dr. Raj Dasgupta, chief medical advisor for Sleepopolis and a quadruple-board certified physician. This is because capsaicin can relax the esophagus, allowing stomach acid to flow back into the esophagus, Dasgupta explains, which worsens symptoms in individuals prone to acid reflux or gastroesophageal reflux disease.
12. You Might Have a Tough Time Sleeping After a Spicy Meal
Discomfort from eating spicy foods before bed can also make it harder to fall asleep at night and worsen sleep quality, Dasgupta says. This is largely because the spicy food can irritate sensitive tissues in your mouth, throat, and GI tract, leaving you tossing and turning.
13. You Get a Mood Boost
The capsaicin found in spicy foods triggers the release of endorphins and dopamine, making us feel happy and maybe even a sense of thrill, explains dietitian Cesar Sauza, R.D.N. with the National Coalition on Health Care.
14. You Might Burn Your Esophagus
Health officials warn against taking part in hot sauce dares and things like the “One Chip Challenge” that involve eating food products with super-high levels of capsaicin.
The Scoville heat units (SHU) scale is used to evaluate the capsaicin content in food. So bell peppers have zero SHU while the Carolina Reaper pepper contains up to 2.2 million SHU.
Poison Control explains that these kinds of challenges can lead to some serious health problems like chest pain, heart palpitations, repeat vomiting that can lead to esophageal damage, and even heart attacks.
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