Eating Spicy Food: Is It Good For Your Health?

Do you enjoy exotic cuisine spiced with chili and spices? Don't deprive yourself! Despite some people's reluctance towards spicy food, eating spicy is good for your health. We will demonstrate this by listing 5 sometimes little-known benefits of chili and spices.

1- Eating spicy food stimulates digestion.

Unless you have a sensitive gut or stomach with a hiatal hernia and/or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), eating spicy foods can have a positive effect on your digestion.

Indeed, the consumption of spices stimulates the secretion of gastric juices and helps to better digest fatty foods. During the meal, spicy condiments like chili or pepper also increase saliva production, which is good for digestion and dental health.

Note: in sensitive individuals, spicy food can promote heartburn and diarrhea. Indeed, chili and certain spices can irritate the stomach and intestinal mucous membranes. This is also why spicy foods are not recommended for young children.

2- Eating spicy food helps prevent hypertension.

It is often overlooked, but the consumption of spices also has a positive effect on high blood pressure. Spices in general and hot peppers in particular have the property of dilating blood vessels.

This vasodilatory effect explains why spicy food raises body temperature. But that's not all: it also stimulates blood circulation and lowers blood pressure.

Moreover, patients with high blood pressure should avoid consuming too much salt daily. In this case, adding seasonings such as pepper, paprika, curry, onion, and garlic powder can effectively replace salt and add flavor to homemade dishes.

3- Spices contribute to an anti-inflammatory diet.

In addition to warming the body and aiding digestion, spices have another important health benefit: they are rich in antioxidants such as capsaicin, polyphenols, or curcumin, which gives turmeric its yellow color.

All these substances are natural anti-inflammatories beneficial against many ailments, from simple muscle pain to rheumatism. Eating spicy food thus equates to adopting an anti-inflammatory diet recommended especially for people suffering from osteoarthritis and chronic pain.

More specifically, spices like cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and chili can help treat a cold as they also possess antibacterial and antiviral properties. When you have a cold, consuming spicy foods has an expectorant effect and helps relieve chesty coughs and nasal congestion.

4- Eating spicy food helps prevent chronic diseases.

Thanks to their anti-inflammatory properties, spices also have a place in an anti-cancer diet: the antioxidants they contain protect cells against aging and prevent the onset of certain chronic diseases.

Several studies published between 2014 and 2019 have revealed the protective effect of capsaicin found in hot peppers against certain cancers:
• prostate cancer;
• colorectal cancer;
• lung cancer.

This is explained by the fact that capsaicin inhibits the proliferation of cancer cells, according to studies conducted in vitro. However, these results should be put into perspective and a reasonable consumption of pepper should be maintained to avoid irritating the digestive mucous membranes.

5- Eating spicy food helps to stay slim.

Finally, it is sometimes said that eating spicy food helps with weight loss. Again, it should be clarified that chili peppers are a food and certainly not a medicine for overweight and obesity.

Studies have shown that spices stimulate metabolism, help eat less, and contribute to the feeling of satiety. When a dish is spicy, we eat it more slowly and feel full faster.

Another study, presented at the American Heart Association sessions, revealed that cinnamon could also help fight fat storage. But of course, no spice is a miracle remedy for weight loss and cannot replace a balanced diet and regular physical activity.