“A sprinkling of red chilli peppers on your dinner keeps hunger pangs at bay,” reports the Daily Mail. It said that spicing up a daily diet with chopped chilli peppers could help curb your appetite.
The effects of capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers and chillies hot, have been studied again in a small trial investigating what effects hot red (cayenne) pepper has on energy expenditure, body temperature and appetite. It used doses that people would normally eat and found that 1g of pepper reduced cravings for salty, sweet and fatty foods and increased energy expenditure. It noted that this effect was greater among the 12 trial participants who did not normally eat spicy peppers compared with the 13 who reported being regular users.
The study was reliably carried out but is very small, with only 25 participants. In particular, the differences between regular and non-users need confirmation in larger studies. Although the news has related this to possible dietary benefits in people trying to lose weight, the participants were all healthy young people of normal weight. This is early preliminary research and further study is needed.