ASU researchers: chili pepper can speed up your metabolism

TEMPE, Ariz. (KSAZ) - Researchers at Arizona State University say they now have the secret key food that helps with weight loss. There is a caveat, however, and that is you'll have to have a high tolerance for heat.

"You can burn, like, 120 calories a day more," said researcher Yue Deng, when talking about taking chili peppers.

"I'll probably eat more chili peppers now," said Jessica Kostyk.

ASU researchers say capsaicin found in chili pepper speeds up a person's metabolism.

ASU students reacted to the discovery.

"The higher metabolism you have, the quicker [calorie] burns, so that makes sense," said Kostyk. "I have a real high metabolism myself, and I love spicy food, so that might go hand in hand."

"I never heard that. I might have to look into it now," said Nicole Choksi.

In order to find out how capsaicin affects the metabolism, researchers first had 40 participants blow into a metabolism tracker, and after blowing in this tracker for about a minute, they used an app to track a person's metabolism rate. Participants who took capsaicin burned up to 120 calories more.