Try a Little Spice to Curb Cravings (CNN)

Spicy foods may quell desire for salt, sugar

  • by Senior Associate Editor, MedPage Today

To curb cravings for sugar and salty foods, consider adding some spicy foods to your diet, CNN reported.

A considerable body of research supports a dampening effect of spicy foods on the desire for salt, in particular, but also sugar to a lesser degree. For example, brain scans of 600 people in China showed that regions stimulated by salt and spicy foods overlap.

The evidence is less consistent for sugar. One study from Denmark showed that people reported less craving for sugar when they ate tomato soup with cayenne pepper in it than when they ate the soup without pepper. However, another study from Denmark showed that adding chili pepper to sweet, sour, or bitter meals actually increased cravings for sugary and fatty foods.