Saturday, March 15, 2008

Chili Peppers Help You Burn Calories

I spoke recently to a fellow health industry professional who I occasionally hold long, protracted email conversations with. We agree a lot of the time, and disagree some others. Most of the time though, we just share a lot of solid information with each other that gets me thinking and when I’m thinking I tend to get energized and want to share what I’ve come up with. This is just such a time and I think it is probably a topic many people would be happy to learn more about – the effects of chili and spices on your metabolism.

Now, this topic was not wholly new to me – I have read in the past about the effects of chili consumption on metabolism and how it is one of the more thermogenically effective foods for raising the rate of oxygen consumption and even helping to lose weight. Then again, things like caffeine and ephedrine do the same thing, so what does this actually mean?

Luckily, my conversation with my health industry friend dug up a series of recent studies backing up this exact topic, with some very intriguing results.

First, there was a study conducted by the School of Human Life Sciences at the University of Tasmania in Australia. This study concluded that chili consumption helped to increase the metabolism of energy by affecting the production and use of glucose and insulin.

Another study I found very intriguing was one conducted by the Department of Human Nutrition in Fredriksberg, Denmark. This particular study concluded, after submitting 80 overweight individuals to a double blind 8 week study to determine how effective a combination of chilis with other thermogenic materials would be on weight loss and thermogenesis. This particular study showed that thermogenesis was up significantly and that weight was lost, and continued to be lost after the study was over.

I won’t bore you with any more statistics or numbers, but the reality behind these studies is that the ingredients that naturally occur in chilis and other spices have now been found to actively work in conjunction with your body to improve metabolism and increase the efficiency with which you produce and use insulin and glucose. That’s a big deal, especially for people seeking easy ways to combat their weight problems with foods that still taste good.

And, unlike other things that increase thermogenesis in the body like caffeine, chilis and their most active ingredient – capsaicin – do not have nearly as many negative side effects. If you do not abuse chilis or subject your body to intense scovillles you can enjoy a good meal while still maintaining the effectiveness of the food product. Some studies showed increases in thermogenesis by as much as 200 kJ or 2% overall after using a capsaicin, caffeine, tyrosine, and calcium supplement in the body – basically a bioactive food smorgasbord – to bump up how its production of energy.

That’s not to say that you should go out and start the next fad diet by loading yourself with Jalapenos and Habaneras. However, the evidence shows that there is a definite link between losing weight and replacing a high fat, high sodium diet with spices and chilis instead. The flavor is still there, but without all of the negative side effects.

Keep in mind when I say chilis, I am not talking about the Americanized word for Chili which is a big bowl full of delicious and most likely very fatty beans, sauce, meat, etc.  No, we’re talking about the chili peppers.

So be creative and add a little spice to your food.  If it gets you sweating while eating it, you can bet good money you’re burning some extra calories.  And some components of chilis can also help stimulate the digestive system and keep things running more efficiently down there.  It’s a win-win no matter what.




A discussion thread on this article as been created in the forums.  You can access it here:
http://cureyourbody.com/forums/viewthread/72/



Posted by Caroline Cardenas

chili peppers, weight loss, diet, thermogenic,