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If you happen to chew on hot chilli peppers, here’s what happens:

According to Pfizer, you get a burning sensation that spreads across the lips and ignites the tongue. Mucous membranes, which protect the lungs from harmful inhalable, go into overdrive, making the nose run.

A surge of blood travels through dilated vessels and body temperature shoots up, triggering a full-on sweat meant to evaporate the heat away.

The discomfort includes swelling, nausea, vomiting, eye pain, and diarrhea.

According to Health.com, capsaicin is the culprit of the spicy heat in hot peppers. This phytonutrient can have many health benefits, including reducing pain, protecting your cells against damage, and decreasing inflammation. 

The side effects we notice when eating hot chilli, such as sweating and pain, are a result of the body considering the stimulus to be a real burn.

Our body senses capsaicin, the major active compound in chilies, and immediately responds to it.

Website Healthlabs.com further says that although a real burn is not taking place, individual cells in the mouth and digestive system might respond to the stimulus by releasing chemicals that induce a small amount of additional irritation.

The response is usually relatively short-lived and tends to subside once the burning sensation quiets down.