In the cold winter, many people like to eat chili to keep warm. However, traditional medicine believes that although chili can dispel cold, stop diarrhea, kill insects, enhance appetite, and promote digestion, one should pay attention to balancing the five flavors (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty) in their diet. An excessive preference for spicy food can easily lead to an imbalance of yin and yang in the organs, causing diseases.
Excessive lung qi. Spicy food has functions such as dispersing, promoting qi circulation, and invigorating blood. Eating too much can easily lead to excessive lung qi, consuming qi and yin, resulting in reduced immunity and catching cold. It can also cause "internal heat" symptoms such as a sore and dry throat, red eyes, a hot nose, a dry mouth with a sore tongue, chapped corners of the mouth, nosebleeds, and toothache.
Increased damp-heat. Overeating spicy food can easily aggravate internal damp-heat, manifesting as skin acne, high blood pressure, worsening hemorrhoids, and nosebleeds.
Therefore, people in the following situations should pay special attention to reducing their intake of spicy food in winter:
1. People who are lean. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that lean people often belong to a yin-deficient and heat constitution, often manifesting as a dry throat, a bitter taste in the mouth, bloodshot eyes, a heavy head and light feet, and irritability. If they eat too much spicy food, these symptoms will be aggravated, leading to bleeding, allergies, and inflammation.
2. Patients with hyperthyroidism. Patients with hyperthyroidism are often in a state of high excitement. Eating excessive amounts of stimulating foods like chili can worsen their symptoms.
3. Patients with nephritis should not eat chili. Studies have shown that in the process of human metabolism, spicy components are often excreted through the kidneys and can have varying degrees of stimulating effects on kidney parenchymal cells.
4. Patients with chronic gastrointestinal diseases, hemorrhoids, dermatitis, tuberculosis, chronic bronchitis, and high blood pressure.