Does eating Chilli Pepper help kill all germs and increase Immunity?

I used to think that my aunt was really onto something when it comes to her belief in how great pepper is for you. But there is one thing that I have found out through my own experience that she was mistaken about as well. Pepper does not kill bacteria in the body. When you eat it, it goes into your stomach, not into your blood stream and starts to attack your bacteria like some kind of hero. The heat you feel is just capsaicin irritating the back of your throat and tongue, there is not really anything medicinal about that.

I remember this one time when I was really sick and had a horrible cold, so I ate a ton of pepper soup, thinking that it would flush out my infection. What actually happened was, it made me sweat profusely and at 2 a.m. I had just a really horrible case of heartburn. I still had the cold the next day and probably, felt even worse.

Now, does eating pepper boost your immune system? Well it kind of. It does have vitamin C and some antioxidants, because of that, but so do oranges and eating oranges doesn't burn your tongue. I think that the whole idea of boosting your immune system with one thing is a lot more about your overall diet and lifestyle, than it is about one certain ingredient being all the good stuff.

I will continue to eat pepper because I really enjoy the flavour and maybe there's some really small benefit I don't know about. I no longer think of pepper as medicine. It's food and it's good food, but it is not a cure for anything serious.