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Posted by: | Posted on: May 30, 2024

Why Chili Peppers and Spicy Foods Trigger Hiccups


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/05/28/why-spicy-foods-trigger-hiccups.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     May 28, 2024

why spicy foods trigger hiccups

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • There are specific health benefits to spicy foods that range from helping your body fight some cancers, to reducing mucus production in your lungs and helping to prevent emphysema
  • The chemical compound in spicy chili peppers may trigger hiccups by irritating the nerves that innervate your diaphragm or by being sprayed during chewing into your lungs and triggering a response from irritated lung tissue
  • Hiccups are annoying and uncomfortable, but often self-limited; several home remedies may help get rid of them, including sucking on a lemon, squeezing your fingernail or gargling with ice water

I love spicy foods and enjoy the benefits of the spicy chemical in peppers — capsaicin — that may improve health. Chili peppers, one of the main sources of capsaicin, are a staple in diets of Central America, Asia and India. Even in the U.S. there are many who believe “the spicier the better.”

One food industry report found the number of people who enjoy spicy foods is growing, up to 54% from 46% in 2009.1,2 The same report found those between 18 and 34 were the most likely to order spicy food from a restaurant menu. Interestingly, the heat you experience from the chili pepper is a protection for the plant, designed to make you not want to eat them.

As far as scientists know, humans are the only animal who willingly chooses to eat chili peppers.3 On some level you may have learned to tolerate the heat, and may even crave the peppers. This ability to desensitize to the heat in peppers is well-documented, but other studies also demonstrate it may not play as large a role in your desire for spicy peppers as once thought.4

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University dug further and discovered people who enjoyed hot peppers also enjoyed sensation-seeking, including activities like riding roller coasters or exploring. Interestingly, individuals who enjoyed the peppers didn’t feel any less heat from the capsaicin than those who didn’t enjoy hot foods. In other words, this study group didn’t demonstrate desensitization to the peppers.

Your preference for spicy foods may be determined by not only your personality type, but also your genetics.5 Using identical and non-identical twins from Finland, researchers evaluated their responses to capsaicin-laced jelly. Genetic factors accounted for a wide range in variation between people who perceived the spicy jelly as pleasant or unpleasant. Those who did find the experience pleasant shared a genetic variance.

Spicy Food May Trigger Hiccups

If you love a bit of heat with your meal, you’re in luck, as spicy foods are some of the best for your health. The capsaicinoid found in the in the food has been linked to the prevention of chronic diseases. Coupled with their high concentration of vitamins and antioxidants, those spicy peppers are a unique superfood, if you can tolerate the heat. However, while tasty and healthy, these little spice bombs may also trigger the hiccups.

Hiccups may be triggered from stomach distension or irritating the nerve to your diaphragm when you drink too quickly. Spicy peppers don’t trigger hiccups in this way though. Although the exact way in which the pepper triggers hiccups has not been definitively established, scientists do know that not everyone gets hiccups from chili peppers.

Although some people get hiccups just anticipating eating hot peppers, others never get them. The chemical in peppers, capsaicin, that generates the heat, is believed to irritate the nerve that triggers hiccups.6 Others believe the chemical is released in the mouth in a fine spray that enters the lungs and disrupts the normal rhythm of the diaphragm.7 As your diaphragm begins to contract and relax to expel the substance from your lungs, it triggers a hiccup.

What’s Happening When You Have Hiccups?

Hiccups are an involuntary spasm in your diaphragm, the muscle separating your chest from your abdomen, which plays a significant role in breathing.

In this short video, you’ll see how hiccups may start after an irritation to nerves that service your chest and lungs. When your diaphragm contracts the space between your vocal cords closes and creates the characteristic “hic” sound. In order to draw breath, your diaphragm pulls down toward your abdomen, creating negative pressure in your lungs causing air to enter.

During the hiccups your diaphragm spasms, causing you to draw in an involuntary breath. In the simplest cases your stomach may get overdistended or you may have drunk fluid too quickly, irritating the nerve that innervates the diaphragm. Although the true reason for hiccups has not been determined, some believe an irritant triggers the diaphragm to contract helping to rid your gut of air that is trapped, or to draw food down your esophagus to your stomach.

Hiccups are usually self-limited and are nothing more than an uncomfortable nuisance. However, sometimes they can last for a long period of time, or be a signal that something else is wrong. A disturbance in the nerve pathway between the brain and the muscles involved can also trigger hiccups, which explains why you may get hiccups with an emotional situation and why they may be stopped when you are shocked.8

Hiccups are an involuntary movement triggered in part by your autonomic nervous system, the part of your nervous system that controls your breathing, heartbeat and other involuntary functions. Even unborn babies hiccup, which may perhaps prepare them for breathing. But, while virtually everyone gets hiccups, the reason you do has not been established and there is no hard and fast cure you may use each time you get them.

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Hiccups That Last Longer Than 48 Hours May Need Attention

Most cases of hiccups are self-limiting, lasting no more than several minutes to a day. However, in some cases hiccups may last for days — or even years. A persistent case of hiccups lasting more than 48 hours may signal a cause for concern. Hiccups that last more than one month are called intractable hiccups. In some cases, hiccups also persist during sleep.

Since the condition is uncomfortable, some who suffer with persistent or intractable hiccups seek medical care in the hospital. In one study of a community hospital between 1995 and 2000, 54 of more than 100,000 visits were related to hiccups. Most of these patients were over 50 and had other health conditions.9 According to the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine:10

“Chronic persistent hiccups can be debilitating and have been associated with weight loss, insomnia and fatigue. They can be caused by a wide variety of medical conditions, including central nervous system abnormalities, metabolic imbalances, and chest and abdomen pathology. Among the medications known to cause hiccups, the most common include corticosteroids, antidepressants, dopaminergics, and opioids.”

Irritation to the nerves that serve your diaphragm is often the cause for long-term hiccups and may be triggered by gastroesophageal reflux, laryngitis, a tumor, cyst or goiter in your neck or even a hair touching your eardrum.11 Other causes may be related to infection, damage or trauma to your central nervous system, including stroke, head injury, tumor or multiple sclerosis. Long-term hiccups may also be triggered by:

Alcoholism Anesthesia
Barbiturates Diabetes
Electrolyte imbalance Kidney failure
Steroids Tranquilizers

How Capsaicin Interacts With Your Body

Your body has transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) pain receptors which are activated by capsaicin, opening the floodgates to pain. This is one of the reasons your mouth likely feels as if it’s on fire when you eat something spicy.12 However, while the chemical does trigger pain, it also has a unique side effect. After exposure, your TRPV1 receptors go through a period of rest.

During this time, the receptors cease transmitting pain signals to your brain, and while your body may continue to experience the pain, your mind won’t recognize it. This is one of the ways capsaicin pain creams help treat peripheral pain. Scientists call this process “defunctionalization.”13 These creams are produced from highly purified capsaicin and also deplete the neurotransmitter, substance P, which sends pain messages to your brain.14

Although you may experience an increase in the intensity of pain when you first use capsaicin cream, it usually decreases with the second use.15 In some cases, it may take a week or more to help treat pain originating in your joints, as your levels of substance P must be depleted and the cream must be continued to keep the substance from building up again.16 The cream has been used to relieve pain from neurological pain, cluster headaches, surgical pain and arthritic disorders.

Capsaicin has also been used as a dietary supplement as there is evidence it may improve digestion, help reduce diarrhea triggered by bad bacteria in your intestines and fight bacterial infections in your body.17 As a supplement, it may help thin the mucus in your lungs and is an antioxidant that may help fight free radicals.

The Benefits of Spicy Foods

Capsaicin’s interactions in your body explain many of the benefits you may experience when you eat spicy foods. Eating spicy foods helps increase your satiety, or feelings of fullness after a meal. You often feel full faster eating less food, and the peppers may rev your metabolism a bit, helping you to burn more calories at rest. Researchers have discovered including spicy foods may help shrink fat cells and lower blood fat levels.18

Past research has suggested that thermogenic ingredients, or those compounds that increase your body’s heat production, may increase your metabolism by up to 5% and the ability of your body to burn fat by up to 16%.19 Capsaicin is a thermogenic substance that may temporarily increase the ability of your body to burn fat to produce heat.

In fact, when eating spicy foods, you may feel your internal heat rising, even though the temperature in the room has remained the same. The heat you’re feeling is the result of the activation of the TRPV1 receptors.

Although the activation of TRPV1 helps to reduce pain, it may also be responsible for many of the other health benefits you experience. In a journal article in Open Heart, scientists explored a mechanism that may explain the favorable results researchers have found in animal studies using capsaicin-rich diets, including a positive effect on health conditions such as metabolic syndrome, obesity, hypertension, atherosclerosis and stroke.20

As capsaicin thins mucus, it may help to clear your lungs during an illness, strengthen your lung capacity and may help prevent or treat emphysema.21 Various studies also demonstrate that capsaicin may effectively help your body fight prostate cancer.22

Animal studies have found oral supplementation is effective against H. pylori, the bacteria that triggers gastritis and ulcerations of the stomach wall. Capsaicin has also demonstrated some effectiveness against breast cancer, lymphoma and some lung tumors.

The continued application of capsaicin cream may help reduce the proliferation of skin cells common to psoriasis.23 Participants in this study did report the initial week of application caused skin irritation. Men and women with diabetes experienced some improvement in their blood glucose levels, and women who suffered from gestational diabetes (altered blood glucose/insulin resistance during pregnancy) also experienced improvements.

Different Peppers Produce Different Levels of Heat

The intensity of the heat you experience is measured in Scoville units, first developed by William Scoville in 1912.24 Human tasters used to identify the different levels of heat in peppers that originates from the amount of capsaicin in the pepper. Today, machines do that job.

To put the heat in your peppers into perspective, pure capsaicin would have a Scoville unit rating of 16 million.25 Police pepper spray has a unit rating of 2 million and the hottest pepper, the Carolina Reaper, has a unit rating of 2.2 million.26 As of August 2013, the Guinness World Record book states this is the hottest pepper known to man. Well down the list is the Chocolate Habanero, ranking between 300,000 and 577,000 Scoville units.

Scotch Bonnet chili peppers, often used in spicy Caribbean foods, measure between 100,000 and 350,000 Scoville units. Jalapeno peppers, common in the U.S., measure 2,500 to 8,000, while Cubanelle peppers are a mild 100 to 1,000 Scoville units.27

Control Your Hiccups

There are a number of different methods you may have read or heard about to get rid of hiccups. Dr. Tyler Cymet, head of medical education at the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, conducted a five-year study on 54 patients hospitalized for hiccups to evaluate treatment methods.28 What he found was that despite using a variety of treatments, from breath holding to strong medications, none of his patients successfully got rid of their hiccups.

He has continued to use a variety of treatments for patients who suffered from hiccups long enough to seek medical attention and found his patients may experience a 20% to 25% success rate.29

Those treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy, breathing exercise, yoga and Pilates. Each of these treatment options help reduce anxiety and control breathing, which seems to be the modalities that worked best for persistent hiccups. Other alternative remedies that appear to have success with people who don’t suffer from persistent or intractable hiccups include:

  • Having someone squeeze your pinky fingernail for 10 seconds30
  • Gargling with ice water or sipping cold water
  • Hypnosis
  • Acupuncture

Additionally, there are a surprising number of hiccup remedies that have been studied, albeit using small participant numbers. For instance:31

  • Eating a spoonful of sugar eliminated hiccups in 19 of 20 patients, possibly by stimulating the vagus nerve32
  • Eating a lemon wedge soaked in bitters worked to eliminate hiccups in 14 out of 16 individuals33
  • Triggering your gag reflex by blowing up a balloon may also work, possibly by causing a temporary break in respiration34
  • Rectal massage using a finger cured intractable hiccups in 7 out of 7 patients, possibly by stimulating the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves35

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Posted by: | Posted on: January 2, 2024

What Causes Healthy People to Faint?


Reproduced from original article:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/01/02/what-causes-healthy-people-to-faint.aspx
The original Mercola article may not remain on the original site, but I will endeavor to keep it on this site as long as I deem it to be appropriate.

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola     January 02, 2024

what causes healthy people to faint

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

  • The vagus nerve’s connection to your heart may be involved in triggering people to faint
  • Your heart sends signals to your brain via the vagus nerve, and a disruption in these signals may be responsible for fainting
  • Autonomic dysfunction is common in patients with long COVID, including symptoms like dizziness and fainting, and it’s possible COVID-19 may influence signals passing through the vagus nerve
  • A disruption in blood flow of even a few seconds is all it takes to cause fainting or loss of consciousness
  • If you start to feel dizzy, lightheaded and clammy, and your vision gets blurry or filled with spots, sit or lie down immediately; this will reduce your chances of getting hurt by falling, and the horizontal position helps get blood flowing to your head

About 40% of people faint at some point during their lifetime.1 While the experience can be jarring — both for the victim and those around them — and can be indicative of a serious underlying condition, most often the cause is benign.

Vasovagal syncope, or fainting, is the most common type, accounting for one-third of cases.2 During a vasovagal syncope episode, your heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly, reducing circulation to your brain and causing you to lose consciousness.

The vagus nerve, the primary information highway between your gut and your brain, which connects the two organs, is involved, but according to research published in Nature,3 it’s the nerve’s connection to your heart that may trigger people to faint.

Heart-Brain Pathway May Trigger Fainting

While it was long believed that your vagus nerve was simply a way for your brain to communicate with your organs, it’s now known that information is sent both ways; for instance, from your gut to your brain. Your heart, however, also sends signals to your brain via the vagus nerve, and a disruption in these signals may be responsible for fainting.4

The fact that your vagus nerve is involved in fainting isn’t new knowledge. This has been known since the 19th century, according to study author Vineet Augustine, a neurobiologist at the University of California San Diego. Speaking with NPR, Augustine explained:5

“What was not clear was which part of the vagus nerve [was involved]. The vagus nerve is big. It’s a major highway between the body and the brain …What we were trying to argue — well, the heart also sends signals back to the brain, which can influence its function and behavior.”

The scientists found nerve cells that link the heart’s blood-pumping ventricles with the area postrema in the brain, a region that controls breathing and heart rate.6,7 When the pathway was stimulated with a laser in mice, it led to fainting-like symptoms. “When the pulse hits them, the heart rate immediately dips. They wobble around a little bit, and then around seven seconds, they fall over,” Augustine said.8

It’s possible the finding could lead to new treatment options to help prevent fainting due to autonomic disorders, including the rise in fainting cases that occurred since the COVID-19 pandemic. Autonomic dysfunction is common in patients with long COVID, including symptoms like dizziness and fainting, and it’s possible COVID-19 may influence signals passing through the vagus nerve.9

The vagus nerve influences many crucial bodily functions, as it’s a primary part of the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s involved in controlling your mood, immune response, digestion and heart rate, and transmits information about different inner organs to the brain via afferent fibers.

In addition to affecting fainting, vagus nerve stimulation is being looked into as a potential treatment for depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, inflammatory bowel disease and more.10 Interestingly, since the vagal tone is influenced by breathing, yoga, which involves breath work, may offer benefits via the vagus nerve. It’s been found, for instance, that yoga therapy can reduce fainting frequency and pre-fainting symptoms among people with recurrent fainting.11

Common Fainting Triggers

Cerebral blood flow is necessary to provide your brain with a steady supply of glucose to function properly. A disruption in blood flow of even a few seconds is all it takes to cause fainting or loss of consciousness. As noted in the National Library of Medicine’s Stat Pearls:12

“Cerebral blood flow is maintained by a complex mechanism involving cardiac output, systemic vascular resistance, mean arterial pressure, and intravascular volume. Any defect in one or more of these systems leads to decreased cerebral blood flow.”

Fainting, which is sometimes described as blacking out, accounts for 1% to 3.5% of emergency department visits and 6% of hospital visits in the U.S.13 Many factors increase the risk, including prolonged standing, crowded places, hot temperatures, severe pain, extreme fatigue, anxiety and stress.14 Some people may also faint if they see blood.

Bed rest, underlying conditions that affect the nervous system and certain medications, particularly those that influence blood pressure or fluid levels, can also trigger fainting.15 Standing up too quickly, meanwhile, can cause a drop in blood pressure known as orthostatic hypotension, which can lead to lightheadedness and fainting.16

Dehydration is another common cause of fainting. If you don’t drink enough water, your blood becomes thicker and circulates less, which may lead to muscle cramps, as well as trigger your kidneys to hold on to water, so your urine output decreases. Further, according to Toby Mündel, senior lecturer in sport and exercise science, Massey University, New Zealand:17

“The thicker and more concentrated your blood becomes, the harder it is for your cardiovascular system to compensate by increasing heart rate to maintain blood pressure. When your dehydrated body is ‘pushed’ — such as when exercising or faced with heat stress — the risk of exhaustion or collapse increases. This can cause you to faint, for instance, when you stand up too quickly.”

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Signs You’re About to Faint

Often, symptoms occur prior to the fainting episode. These include:18,19

Blurred vision Nausea
Dizziness Weakness
Sweating Pale appearance
Headache Disorientation
Confusion Slurred speech

Less commonly, irregular heart rhythms may cause a person to faint. This may be a sign of a potentially serious condition. Aortic stenosis, enlarged heart and both fast or slow heart rates can trigger fainting.

Atrial fibrillation, an abnormal, often rapid, heart rhythm that occurs when the atria, your heart’s upper chambers, beat out of sync with the ventricles, may also lead to fainting.20 In cardiac fainting, heart palpitations may occur prior to the episode.21 If you pass out with no warning, it’s possible heart rhythm problems are to blame.22

Fainting Is Common After Vaccines

Medical procedures can trigger fainting, and this includes vaccinations. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has received reports of people fainting after nearly all vaccines, including the flu shot. NPR reported the case of a 39-year-old man who fainted five minutes after a flu shot, requiring a trip to the emergency room and resulting in a bill for $4,692.23

However, fainting after vaccines is particularly common in adolescents and most often occurs after the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, meningococcal conjugate vaccine and the tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccine.24 The CDC noted:25

“Because the ingredients of these three vaccines are different, yet fainting is seen with all of them, scientists think that fainting is due to the vaccination process and not to the vaccines themselves. However, there is not yet a definite answer about whether an ingredient of the vaccines is responsible for the fainting or if adolescents are simply more likely than children or adults to experience fainting.”

According to the CDC, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) receives many reports each year of people fainting after vaccinations, “and many more are likely to go unreported.” It’s estimated that 62% of fainting reports after vaccines occur among adolescents aged 11 to 18 years.26

Another study of 9- to 18-year-olds who received a vaccine or venipuncture found that 2.99 per 10,000 vaccination events resulted in fainting, as did 16.33 per 10,000 venipunctures.27 Fainting became more likely when more than one vaccine was given, rising from 1.51 per 10,000 vaccination events following a single vaccine to 9.94 per 10,000 following three or more vaccines. In about 15% of vaccine and venipuncture events, fainting resulted in injury.

Fainting-related falls can be serious, with head injury the most significant risk. One study of fainting-related reports to VAERS found that 7% of the fainting episodes were serious, and 12% involved head injuries.28 The CDC described one case as follows:29

“A girl aged 13 years fainted within 10 minutes of receiving HPV and MCV4 vaccinations. She fell backward and hit her head on the carpeted floor of the clinic. The girl was admitted to the pediatric intensive-care unit because of skull fractures and subarachnoid hemorrhage.”

In another case reported in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, a 15-year-old boy with no known medical problems fainted several minutes after receiving the third dose of hepatitis B vaccine.30 He fell backward onto a concrete floor covered by a thin carpet, striking the back of his head.

He regained consciousness but had convulsions, went into cardiopulmonary arrest and died. An autopsy revealed he suffered from traumatic brain injury, including frontal lobe contusions, along with brain swelling and bleeding, even though he had no skull fracture.

Due to these risks, the CDC recommends patients sit or lie down while receiving a vaccine, and be observed for 15 minutes afterward, as 70% of fainting episodes typically occur within that timeframe.31 However, this means 30% may occur outside of this window. And with many shots given at pharmacies and other non-doctors’ office settings, these observation periods are often neglected.

What to Do if You Feel Like You’re Going to Faint

If you start to feel dizzy, lightheaded and clammy, and your vision gets blurry or filled with spots, sit or lie down immediately. Not only does this reduce your chances of getting hurt by falling, but the horizontal position helps get blood flowing to your head.32

Using applied tension can also help reduce symptoms and lower the risk of fainting. In a study of adult blood donors — a population that often experiences fainting symptoms and fainting — applied tension helped reduce symptoms and lowered the risk of a vasovagal reaction consistent with fainting.33 This can be as simple as:34

  • Making a fist
  • Crossing your legs
  • Squeezing your thighs together
  • Tightening the muscles in your arms

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke recommends lying down for 10 to 15 minutes in a cool, quiet spot. If this isn’t an option, sit with your head between your knees, and sip cold water. Typically, recovery occurs within a few minutes to a few hours,35 but you should seek medical care to rule out potentially serious complications and underlying causes.

Posted in AFIB, Blood, Blood Pressure, Brain, Coronavirus, Dehydration, Faint, Glucose, Heart, Heat, Vaccinations, Vagus | No Comments »