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Holistic Health Jalapeños & Prime Pepper Perks
There’s been a long-standing interest in the health benefits of peppers such as jalapeños and chillies. Besides the mystical capacity to “heal” any bland meal (personal opinion), a comparison of studies shows that eating chilli pepper produces an increase in background metabolism rate (thermogenesis) and fat burning (lipid oxidation) [1]. Thermogenesis, which can also be induced by cold temperatures, can result in increased fat burning (lipid oxidation) within a specific type of fat cells (brown adipose tissue) [2]. Combined with the effect on fat tissue and fat metabolism hormones, eating chillies has a multi-component effect on burning fat in the body [2].
These pepper properties can be attributed to their most potent-tasting chemical “capsaicin”, and both peppers and capsaicin are able to influence fat burning in a dose-dependent way [1]. When capsaicin is encapsulated in a way that subjects don’t experience the peppery taste, fat burning is significantly lowered, indicating that tasting the pepper initiates at least part of the fat burning process [3]. Interestingly, long-term chilli pepper eaters may have a smaller fat-burning response to continued chilli intake [4]. However due to the high amounts of chilli pepper consumed in this study for long periods of time [4], maybe only people who already had a high tolerance signed up, which could have biased the…
