Why lager and laksa hit brain’s sweet spot

MILLIONS of drunken revellers know it instinctively: beer and a curry is a perfect combination.

But researchers say it may be a little too perfect, after discovering that people who like spicy food are more likely to have alcohol problems. Both spicy food and alcohol stimulate the opioid receptors in the brain, triggering the release of naturally occurring endorphins.

In a series of experiments, Sung-Gon Kim, a psychiatry professor from Busan National University in South Korea, has found the link between spicy food and alcohol comes down to the way both stimulate our brain’s reward systems.

Professor Kim found that not only are people who are dependent on alcohol more likely to enjoy eating spicy food, but that medication to treat alcohol problems is more effective in people who prefer a bit of spice with their meals.

When he gave two groups of drinkers a drug called naltrexone, which blocks the opioid reward system, he also found it was effective in the people who preferred spicy food, but not in the other group.

‘‘Naltrexone blocks the opioid system’s activation [which is] initiated by drinking; they do not feel the pleasure any more if they keep taking the medication,’’ he said.

In a third part of the study, Professor Kim found rats that were bred to have alcohol problems drank less if they were injected with the active ingredient in chilli. The injections also appeared to increase the reward activity in their brains, indicating that the rats could be forgoing the alcohol because they were getting the stimulation they desired from the chilli.

Peter Dodd, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, said the findings were fascinating.

‘‘People can have different forms of the opiate receptor, with different people being more or less responsive, so people differ genetically in how they respond to opiates. Therefore, they get a stronger opiate response to eating spicy food; they also get a stronger effect from the thing blocking the opiate response.’’