Spice up your food, red chillies help shed flab

Adding spice to your food can be a new way to get rid of that beer belly for a new study says that red chillies battle the bulge in a three-fold-way.

Adding spice to your food can be a new way to get rid of that beer belly for a new study says that red chillies battle the bulge in a three-fold-way.

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According to food scientist Stephen Whiting, red chillies burn fat, suppress hunger pangs and boost overall calorie-burning rates due to the presence of a key chemical component - capsaicin.

Capsaicin provides red chillies the required heat to trigger an adrenalin rush which in turn orders the brain specifically to burn fat cells and tests have found that fat around the belly - a cause for heart attacks - was burned most rapidly.

Whiting, who is based in Manchester Metropolitan University, found chillies also helped to suppress appetite and they speed up the body’s overall metabolism.

For a decade, dietitians have studied the impact of chillies on the human metabolism, but this is the first time the three-fold effect has been confirmed.

Thanks to capsaicin that stimulates a natural process whereby some of the food we eat at each meal is converted immediately to heat. Dubbed as diet-induced thermogenesis, the process comes as a good news for dieters because it means they burn up the calories automatically rather than storing them.

Scientists have found that diet-induced thermo genesis usually uses up carbohydrates.

Studies also say, when people eat chilli-spiked food, they feel less hungry and it tricks them into thinking that the meal contains more fat than it actually does.