While chili peppers and marijuana have very different effects on the brain, a new study shows that, when consumed, their impact on the gut may not be so dissimilar.

Axar.az informs according to Medicalnewstoday researchers have found that chili peppers and marijuana may reduce gut inflammation.
Researchers have found that capsaicin - the compound that gives chili peppers their heat - targets a receptor in the gut that produces a compound called anandamide, which is chemically similar to the compounds in marijuana.

In the guts of mice, anandamide produced by capsaicin consumption was found to reduce inflammation by summoning anti-inflammatory immune cells, and it even reversed type 1 diabetes in the rodents.

Study co-author Pramod Srivastava, professor of immunology and medicine at the UConn Health School of Medicine in Farmington, CT, and colleagues say that their findings suggest that both chill peppers and edible marijuana may help to treat type 1 diabetes and colitis (inflammation of the colon).

Furthermore, the team says that the study raises some important questions about how the immune system, the gut, and the brain are linked.

The researchers recently reported their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.