BrainStuff Classics: Does Spicy Food Burn Your Tastebuds?

Hot chili peppers can make you feel like your mouth is on fire, but are they actually doing any damage? Learn about the science of spice in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/food-science/can-spicy-food-burn-out-taste-buds.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain
Stuff Lauren Bolga bomb here with a classic Brainstuff episode
from the archives. This one concerns the thrilling sensation of
eating spicy food. How does that work? And can it
really burn out your taste buds? Hey brain Stuff, Lauren

(00:22):
Bugle bomb here. Spiciness is a very personal preference. Some
like their food hot, some like it even hotter, and
some won't even start to chow down until they've slopped
on the saracha, piled on the halapenos, and laid on
enough horseradish too literally bring tears to their eyes, which
practically begs the question, what's wrong with those people? Do

(00:44):
these folks actually enjoy watering eyes, as searing tongue and
a runny nose at the dinner table? But more alarmingly,
one might wonder are they setting themselves up for everything
else to taste extra bland? Can spicy food burn out
your taste buds? Robin Dandoz studies exactly these types of questions,
and assistant professor in the Department of Food Science at Cornell,

(01:05):
Dando has spent his albeit still young career studying how
our bodies interact with the food that we consume and
what comes to spicy foods in our bodies. It's a
tricky one. When you put a spicy food in your mouth,
whether it's a halopeno or whatever is in that five
alarm chili you just ordered, you're often ingesting a chemical
compound found in peppers called kept saysin. Kept says in

(01:27):
interacts with receptors in your mouth, which immediately send a
signal to your brain. The signal goes something like this, fire, fire, hot, hot,
hot fire. It's not some joke that your mouth is
playing on your brain, or not quite. The receptors in
your mouth react, the cap says, in the same way
they would if there were an actual fire on your tongue.

(01:48):
That's why the brain, which takes these things quite literally
sets off your body's sprinkler system. Your heart starts racing,
firing up that fight or flight mechanism. Your blood rushes
to the skin surface to cool things down. You start
to salivate, your nose may start to run. For some people,
this is considered fun. It's a culinary experience. They can't
get enough of it. For those who prefer more subtle

(02:11):
tastes and dry eyes. The whole idea of too spicy
foods may be difficult to comprehend, but too many spicy
food lovers it's the hotter the better. Although it may
seem like a fifty shades of Red kind of thing,
Dando says that people who eat extremely spicy foods often
do it because they have to in order to get
the experience. That's because spicy food connosours probably build up

(02:34):
a tolerance to spiciness. Dando said, there's some pretty strong
evidence that suggests that you can, we would call it desensitization,
simply being exposed to something constantly, you start to build
up a tolerance to it. Physically speaking, desensitization can act
at the nerve, at the receptor, or in the brain.
Dando explains. Essentially, if you're stimulating a nerve a lot,

(02:57):
it can become less responsive with kepsays, and in particular,
one of the neurotransmitters responsible for signaling pain to the
brain can become depleted easily. Likewise, a cell can reprogram
to express fewer of its receptors if they're frequently in use.
And finally, the brain can basically turn down the volume
of a signal in the short term. It's like how

(03:18):
if you get in cold water at the beach. It's
intensely cold, but in a minute or so it doesn't
feel so frigid. If you've ever been a spicy food fanatic,
you may have wondered what year after year of all
of that fiery goodness may be doing to your taste buds.
For sure, spicy foods can get to some people. They've
been associated with acid reflux and heartburn. But as far

(03:39):
as your mouth and those precious taste buds go, don't worry.
Dando says. People seem to talk about spicy food destroys
your taste buds. That's not really true. It's not physically
damaging the tissues. It's just kind of simulating the conditions
where they would get damaged. So spice it up, brave foodies,
and keep a glass of whole milk or a side
of bread or rice handy just in case. Today's episode

(04:07):
is based on the article can spicy food really burnout
taste buds? On how stuff works dot Com? Written by
John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio
in partnership with how stuff works dot Com, and it's
produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio.
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