Summary of ZOE Science And Nutrition Podcast Episode: Nightshade vegetables: hazard or health food?
— Description —
Nightshade vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant contain alkaloids with both desirable and toxic effects Concerns about gut damage from nightshade chemicals are based on rodent studies and may not apply to humans Animal-based studies are good for building theories but need verification in human-based studies
ZOE's mission is to empower the community with accurate health information based on the latest science Food intolerance may be the cause of problems attributed to specific foods like nightshades Capsaicin in peppers has shown significant improvements for people with irritable bowel syndrome
Heating and cooling potatoes increases resistant starch, benefiting the gut biome There is no credible evidence linking nightshade vegetables to autoimmune diseases, and a Mediterranean diet rich in nightshades may even lower the incidence of autoimmune diseases.
Nightshade vegetables: hazard or health food?
Key Takeaways
- Nightshade vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant contain alkaloids with both desirable and toxic effects.
- Concerns about gut damage from nightshade chemicals are based on rodent studies and may not apply to humans.
- Animal-based studies are good for building theories but need verification in human-based studies.
- ZOE's mission is to empower the community with accurate health information based on the latest science.
- Food intolerance may be the cause of problems attributed to specific foods like nightshades.
- Capsaicin in peppers has shown significant improvements for people with irritable bowel syndrome.
- Heating and cooling potatoes increases resistant starch, benefiting the gut biome.
- There is no credible evidence linking nightshade vegetables to autoimmune diseases, and a Mediterranean diet rich in nightshades may even lower the incidence of autoimmune diseases.
Beware: Nightshade's Dual Nature
- Nightshade vegetables include tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant. They contain alkaloids that can have both desirable and toxic effects on human physiology.
- Deadly nightshade, also known as belladonna, contains alkaloids that can cause symptoms like dilated pupils, increased heart rate, confusion, and hallucinations. These symptoms are called anti-cholinergic and have led to the development of drugs like atropine.
- Consuming normal nightshade foods in normal amounts is not toxic. Concerns about gut damage from nightshade chemicals are based on rodent studies and may not apply to humans in the same way.
Animal studies are not conclusive proof
- Animal-based studies are good for building theories or hypotheses, but they are not proof in and of themselves. It's important to verify them in human-based studies to ensure that the way it works in humans is the same as what we see in animal models.
- ZOE's mission is to improve health by empowering the community with accurate information based on the latest science. The podcast is offered for free, without ads, to share the latest science with everyone. Listeners are encouraged to share the podcast and hit subscribe to help others discover it.
- In many cases, food intolerance may be causing the problem instead of the assumption that it's the specific type of food like nightshades.
Capsaicin: A Game-Changer for Gut Health
- One of the alkaloids is capsaicin, which is the part of a pepper that makes it have heat or spice. There's actually a significant amount of research in my space as a gastroenterologist, Jonathan, with irritable bowel syndrome, where people with irritable bowel syndrome who took a capsaicin supplement actually saw significant improvements in their abdominal pain and bloating when compared to a placebo.
- You can actually get more resistant starch by heating and then cooling your potatoes, Jonathan. And so each time that we heat and cool a potato, Jonathan, we're actually producing more of this resistant starch, which provides benefits to our gut biome.
- There's really no credible evidence that would implicate nightshade vegetables and autoimmune diseases, to be honest with you, Jonathan. If anything, if we take a step back and look at the bigger picture here, we see a lower incidence of autoimmune disease in people who are consuming a nightshade heavy Mediterranean diet.