What makes spicy food burn your mouth

In response to each, temperature-sensitive pain receptors are triggered — immediately screaming, "This is HOT! Sensing your skin or mouth is in danger, your brain sends back sensations of pain, hoping to encourage you to stop doing whatever it is you're doing. In the case of the hot pan, this pain serves an important purpose — it triggers an immediate reflex to remove your hand before it burns.

In the case of a hot pepper that's not even actually hot, so to speak, the reason is less obvious. Hot peppers contain an alkaline, oil-based molecule called capsaicin, which sneakily triggers the temperature-sensitive pain receptors in your mouth even though the molecule itself doesn't produce heat or cause any real damage unless you really overdo it.

Once capsaicin triggers these pain receptors, your brain is tricked into thinking your mouth is in danger — cue the burning pain meant to encourage you to stop eating whatever spicy thing you're eating. These pain receptors in your mouth can adjust to the capsaicin's trickery, though. If you overstimulate these temperature-sensitive receptors by eating spicy food often enough, they're more likely to become desensitized to capsaicin.

This is why people who eat spicy food frequently are able to handle it better than those who don't — the "burning pain" is dulled for them. For those who don't eat spicy food often, the burning sensation is either too much, and you stop eating it altogether, or you try to dull the burn by reaching for something you think might help cool your mouth down. So, you ate the hot wings, and now here you are: Frantically searching the internet for some sort of spicy food hack — literally anything to put out the fire spreading through your mouth and keep you from sweating bullets.

Armed with your new knowledge about the science of capsaicin, here are the do's and dont's of cooling your mouth down after eating spicy food:. DO reach for some dairy. Schaefer Updated Jun 28, Milk beat the heat best, the study found. Published June 28, Mari A. Schaefer Email. The central nervous system can be confused or fooled when these pain fibers are stimulated by a chemical, like that in chile peppers, which triggers an ambiguous neural response. Scientists are not certain how the process works, but probably the brain makes a judgment based on the type and variety of stimuli being received.

Stimulus to the nociceptors alone might indicate dangerous, extreme temperature. But capsaicin, the active ingredient in chile peppers, also stimulates the nerves that respond only to mild increases in temperature--the ones that give the sensation of moderate warmth. So capsaicin sends two messages to the brain: 'I am an intense stimulus,' and 'I am warmth.

Therefore, the pattern of activity from pain and warm nerve fibers triggers both the sensations and the physical reactions of heat, including vasodilation, sweating and flushing. In fact, the two sensory experiences are related but are very distinct. They innervate the tongue the same way, but the pain system that is triggered by capsaicin is everywhere on the body, so one can get thermal effects everywhere.

Shouldn't we want to avoid a fruit that singes the mouth and makes us imbibe vast quantities of water? Some experts argue that we like chilies because they are good for us.

They can help lower blood pressure , may have some antimicrobial effects, and they increase salivation , which is good if you eat a boring diet based on one bland staple crop like corn or rice. The pain of chilies can even kill other pain, a concept supported by recent research.

Others, notably Dr. Paul Rozin at the University of Pennsylvania , argue that the beneficial effects are too small to explain the great human love of chili-spiced food. But he has evidence for what he calls benign masochism.