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Water soothing the burn

C

Captain Capsaicin

The majority of people claim that drinking water makes a hot pepper burn worse. The mantra is that capsaicin isn't water soluble. As such, all you're doing is spreading the capsaicin oil all around your mouth and thus making things worse. If water can spread capsaicin then that means that it can suspend it in solution. If capsaicin is suspended in solution then clearly a good bit of it will be washed down to the stomach when one swallows. Does this mean that water is as good as heavy cream? Certainly not? Does it mean that it will help expedite the process of getting through the burn? Yes.

I personally find that water seems to help me. Could it be that the cold water just temporarily lessens the feeling of pain giving me the false perception that it's legitimately helping? Yeah, it's possible. Anyway, I'd just like to solicit some feedback on the paragraph above. Is my line of thinking flawed and if so, how?
 
Capsacian is fat soluble and water will temporarily relieve the pain until the cold is gone and the heat will comeback without relief. Typically people use dairy products because they contain casein which binds to the capsacian preventing it from binding to receptors. Also cold sugar solutions and alcohol will help in reducing the heat as well.
 
LUCKYDOG said:
Capsacian is fat soluble and water will temporarily relieve the pain until the cold is gone and the heat will comeback without relief. Typically people use dairy products because they contain casein which binds to the capsacian preventing it from binding to receptors. Also cold sugar solutions and alcohol will help in reducing the heat as well.
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That's fascinating info about casein, very good to know. I had recently heard about sugar in a different thread but hadn't heard about alcohol. Does sugar bind to capsaicin molecules as well? Is alcohol effective strictly because capsaicin is alcohol soluble or does it have some additional mode of action?

As far as water goes, I'm OK with taking it on faith. With that said, capsaicin is found in oils within hot peppers. If I dump some oil in my sink and then run water over it then the oil may not dissolves but the majority will indeed wash down the drain. If I pour oil into a jar and then dump some water in then the majority of the oil will float at to the top. In time it will all be at the top as oil has a lower density. Point being, if capsaicin oil is suspended in water in one's mouth and they swallow then both oil and water are leaving the mouth even though the oil/capsaicin isn't dissolved in said water.

I think that the assertion which many make that water exacerbates the problem actually supports the idea of water speeding the recovery. If water can spread the capsaicin oil to other parts of the mouth then it can wash it down the throat.
 
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