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Spice Up Your Meals for Surprising Health Benefits

Spice Up Your Meals for Surprising Health Benefits

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What’s special about spicy foods? Spices not only benefit a dish’s flavour and colour but also your health through certain compounds.

Highlights:
  • Many everyday spices contain a compound called capsaicin that may benefit your health
  • More the capsaicin content, spicier the food and benefits that come from eating it in all forms
  • Exercise caution when eating spicy foods they aggravate already existing digestion issues
Most Indian cuisine is loaded with spices. Indians rarely compromise on the spice level. Most often the food is rendered bland if the spice level is lower than ‘normal’.
The human body distinctly reacts to spicy food through sensation on the tongue by watery eyes, nose, and redness of the ears. But there is good and bad news if you love eating spicy foods. Read on more to know about the benefits and drawbacks of eating spicy foods.

What Are The Benefits Of Eating Spicy Food?

The tingly feeling that spicy foods bring to your tongue is mainly due to a compound called Capsaicin. The effect of this compound goes beyond the taste buds with research showing various health benefits.

Reduces inflammation

- Spices have anti-inflammatory properties, which are useful in treating health conditions such as headache, autoimmune disease, arthritis, and nausea (1 Trusted Source
Spicy Foods and Your Health

Go to source
).

Prevents cancer

- Spicy foods can act upon cancer cells and eliminate them or restrict their growth by preventing or slowing down their growth, thereby reducing the aggravation of cancer.

Fights infection

-Spices are rich in antioxidants and have antibacterial, and antimicrobial properties. This can help in warding off infections in the body by eliminating the disease-causing elements.

Increases your lifespan

- Eating spicy food six or seven days a week, even just once a day lowered death rate by 14 percent, according to a large 2015 study by Harvard and China National Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2 Trusted Source
Consumption of spicy foods and total and cause specific mortality: population based cohort study

Go to source
).

Improves metabolism

- The presence of antioxidants in spices can boost the body's metabolism, which can help in weight management (3 Trusted Source
Acute effects of mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger on energy expenditure, appetite, ad libitum energy intake and energy balance in human subjects

Go to source
).

What Are The Negative Effects Of Eating Spicy Food?

Many people can benefit from eating spicy foods, but it isn’t the best option for everyone. People who have inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis (conditions that cause inflammation in the digestive tract) may find that spicy food may trigger the symptoms.

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Acid reflux (heartburn), diarrhea, stomach pain and nausea are some of the side effects people eating spicy foods may experience. It can also harm the taste buds as people developing taste for spicy food may find other things bland. Thus, it is always advised to have spicy food in moderation.

References:
  1. Spicy Foods and Your Health - (https://hive.rochesterregional.org/2020/02/spicy-food-health)
  2. Consumption of spicy foods and total and cause specific mortality: population based cohort study - (https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3942)
  3. Acute effects of mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger on energy expenditure, appetite, ad libitum energy intake and energy balance in human subjects - (https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/47FE7819B02B76438ED737020035E725/S0007114512001201a.pdf/acute_effects_of_mustard_horseradish_black_pepper_and_ginger_on_energy_expenditure_appetite_ad_libitum_energy_intake_an)


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Source-Medindia


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