Capsaicin Helps Banish Hunger And Fat
The New Year has kicked off and shifting a few of those extra pounds you gained during the festive season is probably lingering in the back of your mind. Enter capsaicin – the compound responsible for the heat sensation experienced when eating chilli peppers.
Banish hunger and fat fast
Research published in the Journal of Proteome Research, showed that capsaicin has the potential to help fight the build-up of body fat. The researchers found that capsaicin stimulated certain proteins known to break down fat and inhibited the actions of proteins involved in producing fat.
Previously, we told you about the compound’s powerful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. This latest research reveals how capsaicin helps prevent weight gain by lowering food intake, reducing adipose tissue weight (white belly fat), and encouraging thermogenesis – the body’s process of burning fat in the production of heat.
For the study, researchers fed high-fat diets with or without capsaicin to laboratory rats. The capsaicin-treated rats lost 8 per cent of their body weight, had less adiposity, and showed changes in levels of at least 20 key proteins found in fat, which help break down fats, compared to the rats fed a high fat diet without capsaicin.
Furthermore, capsaicin was found to affect genes involved in obesity, including genes associated with thermogenesis, respiratory chain function, and fat oxidation.
While these findings are based on an animal study, and more research is needed to see if similar results can be replicated in humans, capsaicin’s weight loss benefits look like a potential breakthrough in the ongoing battle against obesity and weight-related health problems.
But there’s no reason to wait before you start using capsaicin as a weight loss aid, because according to a 2009 study, published in the journal Clinical Nutrition, involving 27 healthy volunteers, researchers found that consuming a combination of capsaicin and green tea suppressed appetite and led subjects to feel less hungry and take in fewer calories.
Another 2009 study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, found that capsaicin may help decrease ghrelin – a hormone involved in promoting hunger.
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Sources:
Galgani JE, Ravussin E. “Effect of dihydrocapsiate on resting metabolic rate in humans.” Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Nov;92(5):1089-93.
Joo JI, Kim DH, Choi JW, Yun JW. “Proteomic analysis for antiobesity potential of capsaicin on white adipose tissue in rats fed with a high fat diet.” J Proteome Res. 2010 Jun 4;9(6):2977-87.
Reinbach HC, Smeets A, Martinussen T, Muller P, Westerterp-Plantenga MS. “Effects of capsaicin, green tea and CH-19 sweet pepper on appetite and energy intake in humans in negative and positive energy balance.” Clin Nutr. 2009 Jun;28(3):260-5.
