Peppers (Capsicum sp.) for Weight loss: Myth or truth?

When you google “Capsicum medicinal properties”, you will find around 267,000 links (37,000 if you do it in Spanish), that will inform you that Capsicum can cure your migraines, makes you lose weight and helps you find a boyfriend or a girlfriend. We are exaggerating with the boy-girlfriend thing but we take the opportunity to tell you that you have to analyze and discuss all the information that you find in the internet. It can be worse if it comes from a networking-social media. Last week for example, a friend of ours posted that the Annona fruit cures cancer (not proved) and another friend posted that caffeine makes you smarter (it makes you more alert but does not make you smarter). Most of these links tend to exaggerate certain facts.  By the way, my neighbor drinks like 10 cups of coffee a day and he is not the brightest person we know (he could be the exception though).  Anyway, in this blog we would like to provide some information based on scientific publications, self-experimentation and mainly we would like you to search more information if you have unanswered questions, doubts and you can draw your own conclusions. The beauty of science comes from the fact that you can discuss it, refute it and explore it as much as you want.

Just a little tiny sample of the Peruvian biodiversity of fruits. You will see the Annona fruit (green fruit, two species) , the Andean Passion fruit (tumbo de sierra), the coastal passion fruit (maracuya) and Papaya from Arequipa (Vasconcellea cundinamarcensis V.M. Badillo).

Several people would love to lose weight (and look like a model) by swallowing a miracle pill. If you want to look like a model, you have to exercise and follow a really strict diet (lettuce and cabbage? Or air?). Genetics can help a big deal too, if you are the daughter or son of Cindy Crawford you have the genes!!! But, if you want to lose weight like a normal person, to feel healthy and for your own good, you have to start a healthy diet, exercise. Be careful with diet pills or food replacements, use them after talking to your doctor or nutritionist  These supplements do not make miracles, so do not trust the miracle pill. Anyway, in our research we found several useful facts about Capsicum. It seems that Capsicum can be used for weight loss, and we found enough scientific support (101 peer-reviewed publications). Some studies suggest that capsaicinoids (see the post from the other week) could accelerate the metabolism and burn some extra calories in the long run (Galgani, Ryan, & Ravussin, 2010). Stop here, do not get excited, please remember the phrase “in the long run”. So, if you eat your fried chicken with lots of mayonnaise, and French fries, do not expect to burn calories by eating peppers later that day.

Let’s go back to the scientific publications, it seems that capsaicinoids increase the energy consumption by activating the brown adipose tissue (Yoneshiro, Aita, Kawai, Iwanaga, & Saito, 2012). What is the brown adipose tissue? Well think about the fat tissue that converts the food into heat (therefore we can be warm) (Cannon & Nedergaard, 2004). In theory, if you eat Capsicum and get naked in the middle of the winter in Chicago, you can definitely loose some pounds of this tissue (do not do it, it is not worth). But what about the white adipose tissue, the one that isolates us from the cold and supports our internal organs (your normal fat). Well, in an experiment dealing with obesity in rats, it was observed that these lovely peppers accelerated the metabolisms of lipids (that later will constitute part of the White adipose tissue) and it was recorded that some rats lost 8% of their corporal weight (they did slim down) (Joo, Kim, Choi, & Yun, 2010). Now, we go for the best part, Capsicum reduces the production of ghrelin (a hormonal peptide), that is involved in the “hunger sensation” (Smeets & Westerterp-Plantenga, 2009). Furthermore, if the food is really hot (spicy) you will eat slowly, cry a lot and drink lots of water, therefore less food in your stomach!!!

Web Md (the famous website that is not good for hypochondriacs but it saved us from several trips to the doctor’s office) posted that Capsicum helps lower cholesterol levels, and prevents coronary diseases, but more studies are needed (we added the last part). It is worth to mention that a diet containing Capsicum will slightly increase the good cholesterol (HDL-cholesterol) and it will increase the blood flow in men (did not mention women) (Ahuja, Robertson, Geraghty, & Ball, 2007).

Now let’s go to your back pains, rheumatism, arthritis, migraines, sinus infections, nasal congestion. Try with capsaicin cream and rub it in the affect area. You may feel a burning sensation but it does relieve the pain (we tried this one, it worked).

Beware of the Capsicum in the hands of your kid or yourself. We found a report that Capsicum may lead to conjunctive tissue infection in kids (Gerber, Frueh, & Tappeiner, 2011) so be careful when chopping peppers (use gloves).

Cutting "Aji escabeche" to make "Aji de gallina" (spicy chicken). 

If you want more information about the Capsicum, medicinal properties, taxonomy, distribution, etc., do not hesitate to write us. We list some for the publications we consulted for this post (there are many more but we got lazy in listing them). Eat and use Capsicum if you feel comfortable with the hot element. Each person and body is different and we have to learn to listen to our body, Capsicum could improve your diet results but do not use it as unique way to lose weight. To finish this post we will leave you with the picture of a Peruvian jungle pepper (known as Aji Charapita). Enjoy. In the next post we will teach you how to prepare pesticides with Capsicum and other plants.  

Note: If you search for Capsaicinoids and metabolism in Web of Science you can find at least 125 publications, compare that with the search in google (267,000). You can reach your own conclusions.

Cited Literature

Ahuja, K. D. K., Robertson, I. K., Geraghty, D. P., & Ball, M. J. (2007). The effect of 4-week chilli supplementation on metabolic and arterial function in humans. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 61(3), 326-333. doi: 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602517

Cannon, Barbara, & Nedergaard, Jan. (2004). Brown Adipose Tissue: Function and Physiological Significance. Physiological Review, 84, 277–359.

Galgani, J. E., Ryan, D. H., & Ravussin, E. (2010). Effect of capsinoids on energy metabolism in human subjects. British Journal of Nutrition, 103(1), 38-42. doi: 10.1017/s0007114509991358

Gerber, S., Frueh, B. E., & Tappeiner, C. (2011). Conjunctival Proliferation After a Mild Pepper Spray Injury in a Young Child. Cornea, 30(9), 1042-1044. doi: 10.1097/ICO.0b013e318206cad9

Joo, Jeong In, Kim, Dong Hyun, Choi, Jung-Won, & Yun, Jong Won. (2010). Proteomic Analysis for Antiobesity Potential of Capsaicin on White Adipose Tissue in Rats Fed with a High Fat Diet. Journal of Proteome Research, 9(6), 2977–2987.

Smeets, A. J., & Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S. (2009). The acute effects of a lunch containing capsaicin on energy and substrate utilisation, hormones, and satiety. European Journal of Nutrition, 48(4), 229-234. doi: 10.1007/s00394-009-0006-1

Yoneshiro, T., Aita, S., Kawai, Y., Iwanaga, T., & Saito, M. (2012). Nonpungent capsaicin analogs (capsinoids) increase energy expenditure through the activation of brown adipose tissue in humans. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 95(4), 845-850. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.111.018606