8 Reasons To Include Cayenne Pepper In Your Diet (3 of 5)

4. Acts As a Pain Reducer

Applying cayenne pepper to parts of your body can actually reduce pain! It’s not just something we whipped out of thin air either; this is according to a study by the University of Maryland Medical Center. How is this possible? When rubbing the pepper onto an area that hurts, the capsaicin suppresses substance P, a chemical responsible for delivering pain messages to the brain. This provides relief. In fact, if you look at the list of ingredients in pain ointments, you will notice that capsaicin is in virtually all of them. But that’s not the only way the pepper alleviates pain. Do you suffer from migraines? In some cases consuming cayenne can help with that! Finally, if you develop cramps, applying cayenne can help bring nerve-to-muscle communication back into proper alignment.

5. Cancer Preventative

According to numerous research studies, capsaicin can literally kill cancer cells. In addition, it can slow down the ability of cancer cells to travel across the body. Studies on patients with different types of cancers — prostate, breast, colon, and lung — found that they benefited from consuming cayenne. Other studies have found that capsaicin can also prevent the growth of tumors.