Spicy is perceived by the same receptors as the feelings hot and/or pain. But is this just some “trickery” of the receptors or does spicy food do actual damage? And if it doesn’t do actual damage: Why do people sometimes still throw up because of it (if it was too much)?
In: 212
For the most part, no permanent damage of any kind. It’s pain, that is to say, the pain receptor is stimulated and your brain is fooled. And that very foolery is why some people vomit. The brain triggers it because it believes in the severe pain and to get rid of the trigger, it throws up.
The “spicy” chemical itself doesn’t directly damage your body unless it’s very concentrated. However, if your body freaks out because it thinks it’s getting damaged, there can be a lot of indirect effects, like vomiting, your heart rate skyrocketing, or your throat swelling.
It’s just trickery of the receptors; capsaicin does not do actual damage to humans – not at the levels you’d experience simply by eating spicy food, anyway (EVERYTHING is lethal in sufficient doses).
That said, that trickery of the receptors can cause real physical harm when our body reacts to it. The reason some people get heartburn or vomit is because it irritates nerves inside the body in a similar way as it irritates your taste buds, and some people’s bodies are more sensitive to that. It doesn’t cause damage, but the body does not mess around with that sort of stuff and will do body things to get rid of the thing causing it, and those responses can be “eject everything to get it out,” like vomiting. Or it could promote the creation of more stomach acid than normal which then is more likely to travel up your esophagus a little and cause acid reflux or heartburn. And while capsaicin likely won’t cause the creation of stomach ulcers, the response will certainly aggravate any existing ones. And in the end, whether capsaicin directly causes these problems or just tricks your body into causing them itself is pretty irrelevant, insofar as it sucks for the poor person experiencing them either way.
Spicy food basically just tricks your brain into thinking you’re dealing with something dangerous, it’s not doing real permanent damage. The vomit response is to pain, not damage, which is why spicy food can cause that sort of reaction.
That said, capsaicin *is* basically a chemical irritant; it can do real damage if you get it in your eyes or lungs.
The chemical responsible for “spicy” is an oil called capsaicin. Your mouth is full of nerves that are sensitive to heat: when proteins in the nerves warm up, it causes them to bend into a new shape. That change in shape triggers the nerve to fire, which tells your brain that something in your mouth is warm. Some proteins require a higher heat to trigger, and when they do it tells your brain that your mouth isn’t just warm, it’s *hot*. Your brain also looks at how many are triggering: more nerves = more hot.
There are special nerves called *nociceptors* that are tuned to things that are dangerous or damaging, and they tell your brain that there should be *pain*. In this case, there are nociceptors with proteins that only change when they get dangerously hot, which then tells your brain to feel like your mouth hurts. This is meant to protect you because you’ll then spit out whatever you tried to eat that is too hot and will burn your lips, tongue, and throat if you ate it. It also triggers things like making your mouth water in order to cool and protect your mouth, eyes watering to flush out anything getting in there, sweating to cool you off, etc.
Capsaicin interferes with the proteins and nerves, forcing them to trigger regardless of how warm (or not) your mouth is. This tells your brain that your mouth is very hot – *painfully* hot – even though it isn’t. The fact that the food you’re eating might also just be physically very hot will contribute to that painful feeling, but even if the food is cold your brain doesn’t know that. It’s getting a signal from the heat-sensing nerves and nociceptors, so you feel the sensation of heat regardless of how warm it is. The unconscious part of your brain can’t understand that what you’re feeling isn’t real. To it, there’s no difference between your mouth being literally on fire and all of your nerves going off *as if* your mouth is on fire but isn’t. It’s the same sensation either way.
This is *mostly* harmless. Nothing is actually burning, it just *feels* like it’s burning. However, this *can* cause problems because your brain will continue to react as if your mouth is burning and do things that it would need to do if your mouth really was on fire. Some of that response is a lot like an allergic response. That means producing a lot of saliva, which can overwhelm your throat and cause you to choke and cough. Your throat tries to close up to prevent you from swallowing what your brain thinks is dangerously hot. This can make breathing and swallowing difficult, making it more likely that you will choke if you do swallow some food. If the food is spicy enough and you aren’t used to it, this reaction can lead to full on anaphylaxis where your throat swells shut, your heart rate spikes dangerously high, and you may try to vomit to remove the “harmful” stuff. That can be *extremely* dangerous. That’s not to say that eating any spicy food will kill you, just don’t try to swallow a spoon full of straight up raw capsaicin.
Pro tip: capsaicin is an oil, which means it does not mix with water. If you try to use water to flush out your mouth after eating something spicy all it will do is move the capsaicin around your mouth and make it worse. Instead, rinse your mouth with milk. The fats in the milk will grab the capsaicin oil and carry it away. Icecream is also good for the same reason (the fats in the dairy), and although your mouth is not actually hot and on fire your brain will still appreciate the cold of the icecream “putting out” the heat.
I guess the only damage is that your taste buds get used enough to the heat that you want to go for more.
Capsaicin, the most common chemical found in chilies papers and makes things taste “spicy” is a natural irritant that on its own won’t do any real damage. However, some people can have allergic type reactions to capsaicin, swollen touches, closing of the air ways, etc, that can be harmful. The reaction does to some minimal tamale due to the inflammation reaction the body undergoes that could cause some issues too, but other than that, no capsaicin will not do any real harm to the body. It is truly a test between the body’s reaction to the chemical and the mind’s ability to overcome that reaction. One reason why people can build a tolerance to capsaicin but the. Have a different reaction to Wasabi or horse reddish, which irritates using g a different chemical irritant.
The chemical fills a hole in our receptors that tells your brain that you are on fire.
Our “receptors” are very weird, the fact a chemical could trick your body into thinking it is on fire is quite strange. It was not a strategy but rather a random mutation of chemicals in a plant of South America.
The fact remains that you think you are on fire.
The chemical fills a hole in our receptors that tells your brain that you are on fire.
Our “receptors” are very weird, the fact a chemical could trick your body into thinking it is on fire is quite strange. It was not a strategy but rather a random mutation of chemicals in a plant of South America.
The fact remains that you think you are on fire.
Not really. Capsaicin tricks your nerves into thinking damage is happening. It doesn’t actually do much.
That said, long term exposure can start to reduce your sensitivity to heat. But like, then you can just eat hotter stuff without pain
Latest Answers