Does spicy food cause ulcers?
What you need to know:
There is a misconception that peptic ulcer disease is caused by eating a lot of spicy or highly acidic foods
Dear Doctor: Does spicy food cause ulcers? Then how come pepper is being put in herbs to cure ulcers? There is also a craze in town about taking pepper to cure stomach pain ulcers.
Waishemwe, Kagando
Dear Waishemwe: Until recently, it was believed that peptic ulcer disease (PUD), was caused by eating lots of spicy or highly acidic foods, smoking, drinking alcohol, poor eating habits and stress. As a result, people were put on strict ulcer diets but with only temporary relief of pain while the ulcers continued and caused complications including stomach cancer, perforation, bleeding and scar deformations.
Taking milk and magnesium for temporary relief was the main treatment then, but since this did not cure the ulcers, the disease continued unabated, leading to complications.
Today, it is well-known that a germ named helicobacter pylori causes the majority of ulcers with the rest being caused mainly by painkillers of the type non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS).
Peptic ulcers can be cured by taking a combination of antibiotics and drugs that lessen acid production. The antibiotics eliminate the germ that causes peptic ulcers while the drug that reduces acid allows ulcers to heal.
Although people may experience heartburn after eating spicy foods, (spices that contain pepper) the substance capsaicin in pepper is said not only to be protective against the ulcers, but it also lessens the pain of the ulcers albeit temporarily.
Capsaicin stimulates nerve endings in the stomach that cause the release of protective chemicals, which changes the acid balance in the stomach to one in which the bacterium helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), the primary cause of ulcers, cannot live happily.
Compounds in cranberry juice have also been found to prevent bacteria from attaching to both the urinary tract and stomach, preventing both urinary tract infections and H. pylori.
Anybody with pain in the abdomen should be diagnosed properly and treatment given. Many perceive pain in the abdomen is ulcers and yet there may be many causes of the pain which improve with time and if one takes pepper then, the pepper will be suspected to have been curative whereas it was not.
