Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why do some humans love chili peppers?

sapiens.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 184 posts

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#121

Post by Avshalom »

JulianRaphael wrote: post #70

These two papers give a much better answer than this blog: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138904172... (why do humans increase their chili consumption) and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042654/ (antibacterial + disease-alleviating properties of capsaicin). Besides the fact that capsaicin has antibacterial effects and exerts indirect disease-alleviating effects during bacterial infe…

Problem with this is that outside of the Americas no one was eating caspicum until about 500 years ago.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#122

Post by dwringer »

epgui wrote: post #116
saiya-jin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drinking regularly drinks that are too hot significantly increases the risk of throat cancer. I can't find the paper anymore that I read few years ago, but they did check various cultures where drinking very hot tea is traditional, controlled for other factors and the results were not nice. IIRC the threshold where risk became significantly higher was around 70-75 degrees celzius. I mean think about it - around 60 de…

Biochemist who went to med school: very hot beverages will indeed cause tissue damage, and can cause oral cancer. Though English uses the same word to describe both (“hot”), there is no relationship between “spicy” food and high temperature stuff, apart from the fact that they both stimulate pain receptors (but in very different ways, one being harmful and the other being harmless).

The commentor above appeared to use the term in both ways, referring to both "hot spicy soup" and "burning hot coffee"

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#123

Post by yamtaddle »

overthemoon wrote: post #119
epgui wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biochemist who went to med school: very hot beverages will indeed cause tissue damage, and can cause oral cancer. Though English uses the same word to describe both (“hot”), there is no relationship between “spicy” food and high temperature stuff, apart from the fact that they both stimulate pain receptors (but in very different ways, one being harmful and the other being harmless).

Why does tissue damage increase the risk of cancer? My guess is that more damage -> more cells created to replace damaged ones -> more opportunities for mutation. Is that right? If you bite the inside of your lip a lot, is that bad? Uh, asking for a friend.

> If you bite the inside of your lip a lot, is that bad?

Yeah, um, gonna want an answer to that too.

This:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsicatio_buccarum

Makes no mention of cancer risk even in fairly extreme cases of cheek-biting.

The "Oral Cancer" article also doesn't list it as a risk factor or cause.

So... probably not that bad?

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#125

Post by Cerium »

overthemoon wrote: post #119
epgui wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biochemist who went to med school: very hot beverages will indeed cause tissue damage, and can cause oral cancer. Though English uses the same word to describe both (“hot”), there is no relationship between “spicy” food and high temperature stuff, apart from the fact that they both stimulate pain receptors (but in very different ways, one being harmful and the other being harmless).

Why does tissue damage increase the risk of cancer? My guess is that more damage -> more cells created to replace damaged ones -> more opportunities for mutation. Is that right? If you bite the inside of your lip a lot, is that bad? Uh, asking for a friend.

When you have damaged tissue you must replace it sooner. Tissue replacement is by division of cells, which carries the risk of a transcription error. If the wrong error occurs and is not caught you have cancer.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#126

Post by epgui »

yamtaddle wrote: post #123
overthemoon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does tissue damage increase the risk of cancer? My guess is that more damage -> more cells created to replace damaged ones -> more opportunities for mutation. Is that right? If you bite the inside of your lip a lot, is that bad? Uh, asking for a friend.

> If you bite the inside of your lip a lot, is that bad? Yeah, um, gonna want an answer to that too. This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morsicatio_buccarum Makes no mention of cancer risk even in fairly extreme cases of cheek-biting. The "Oral Cancer" article also doesn't list it as a risk factor or cause. So... probably not that bad?

Yes, constantly biting your lip (I’m talking about injuring the tissue, not just nibbling) will increase your risk of oral cancer too.

It’s not something most people do super often, so I’m not sure if we’d even have a risk measurement for that. In almost all cases of accidental biting risk is basically nil / negligible… But theoretically nonzero.

A reference (somewhat taken at random) for more explanations of the general concept: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2803035/

It’s a well-established principle, and is one of the main reasons why smoking anything in general will cause lung cancer, why hepatitis frequently leads to liver cancer, why IBD frequently leads to bowel cancer, why alcohol consumption causes oral cancer, etc.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#127

Post by epgui »

dwringer wrote: post #122
epgui wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biochemist who went to med school: very hot beverages will indeed cause tissue damage, and can cause oral cancer. Though English uses the same word to describe both (“hot”), there is no relationship between “spicy” food and high temperature stuff, apart from the fact that they both stimulate pain receptors (but in very different ways, one being harmful and the other being harmless).

The commentor above appeared to use the term in both ways, referring to both "hot spicy soup" and "burning hot coffee"

Yeah, and that struck me as really wrong.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#128

Post by epgui »

Cerium wrote: post #125
overthemoon wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does tissue damage increase the risk of cancer? My guess is that more damage -> more cells created to replace damaged ones -> more opportunities for mutation. Is that right? If you bite the inside of your lip a lot, is that bad? Uh, asking for a friend.

When you have damaged tissue you must replace it sooner. Tissue replacement is by division of cells, which carries the risk of a transcription error. If the wrong error occurs and is not caught you have cancer.

Basically this, but perhaps a slightly more accurate explanation is that tissue damage causes inflammation, which is angiogenic, proliferative (which you hint at) and generally increases the risk of cancer.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#129

Post by tmcw »

I mean, I get it, like I can't imagine being new to the scene and starting with "Unlimited Love" or something as your first listen, but of course - if you were there for the "Mothers Milk" era, it's obvious why you'd like the peppers.

Re: Why do some humans love chili peppers?

#130

Post by unmole »

samatman wrote: post #100
unmole wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What is the aim of your chaotic and pugnacious dialogue here? Is it to prove that foreigners aren't invited to the eat chiles championship? To get proof that there are not-white people in the US? Just being cantankerous?

> What is the aim of your chaotic and pugnacious dialogue here?

To point out the absurdity of this statement:

> The world champions in chili eating contests are caucasian.

You'll note that I did not bring race into the picture. Tolerance and preference for chilies in all probability has more to due with nurture than nature The OP decided that minority had an ethnic connotation.

Post reply on HN