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Claim analyzed
“Eating spicy food can cause stomach ulcers.”
The Conclusion
Executive Summary
Spicy food does not cause stomach (peptic) ulcers. The best evidence and major medical sources attribute ulcers mainly to H. pylori infection and NSAID use; spicy foods may irritate the stomach or worsen symptoms in people who already have an ulcer, which is why some are advised to limit them.
Warnings
- Do not confuse symptom flare-ups (pain/heartburn) after spicy food with ulcer formation; irritation is not causation.
- Advice to avoid spicy foods in ulcer patients is typically for symptom control, not evidence that spicy foods create ulcers.
- The claim's broad wording ignores the established primary causes (H. pylori, NSAIDs), which changes the overall conclusion.
The Claim
How we interpreted the user input
Intent
User wants to know if there is a causal relationship between consuming spicy food and developing stomach ulcers
Testable Claim
The user's input, neutralized and hardened into a testable hypothesis
“Eating spicy food can cause stomach ulcers.”
The Research
What we found online
Summary of Findings
All sources are listed in the Sources section at the end of this report.
The Debate
The for and against arguments
While the evidence is limited, the widespread historical belief that spicy foods cause ulcers persists because spicy foods can irritate existing ulcers and cause stomach discomfort, as acknowledged by Source 2 (MedicalNewsToday) and Source 18 (Pantai Hospitals), creating a logical connection between spicy food consumption and ulcer-related symptoms. The fact that people with ulcers are still "advised either to limit or avoid" spicy foods according to Source 1 (PubMed) suggests that medical professionals recognize a meaningful relationship between spicy food and ulcer formation or exacerbation.
You're committing a classic correlation/causation error: Sources 2 (MedicalNewsToday) and 18 (Pantai Hospitals) explicitly distinguish “irritate existing ulcers / worsen symptoms” from “cause ulcers,” so symptom flare-ups don't logically imply ulcer formation. And you cherry-pick Source 1 (PubMed) by quoting the “advised to limit or avoid” line while ignoring its central conclusion that capsaicin is “not the cause for ulcer formation” and may be protective via reduced acid and increased mucus/blood flow—so your inference about clinicians “recognizing” causation is directly contradicted by the same source.
The motion is false because the highest-authority evidence in the brief explicitly states chili/capsaicin is “not the cause for ulcer formation” and instead supports protective, ulcer-preventing mechanisms (Source 1, PubMed: “Capsaicin and gastric ulcers”; also echoed in Source 4). Multiple clinical-facing summaries likewise report no research linking spicy foods to causing peptic ulcers and identify H. pylori infection and NSAID use as the primary causes, with spicy foods at most irritating existing ulcers rather than creating them (Source 2, MedicalNewsToday; Source 3, MU Health Care; Source 6, UChicago Medicine; Source 7, University Hospitals).
Your argument conflates causation with irritation, but you ignore that Source 1 and Source 18 explicitly acknowledge that people with ulcers are still "advised either to limit or avoid" spicy foods, indicating that medical professionals recognize a meaningful clinical relationship between spicy food consumption and ulcer complications that supports the motion's validity. You cherry-pick the protective mechanisms while dismissing the consistent evidence across multiple sources that spicy foods can worsen existing ulcers and cause stomach discomfort, which demonstrates a causal pathway between spicy food consumption and ulcer-related pathology.
Jump into a live chat with the Proponent and the Opponent. Challenge their reasoning, ask your own questions, and investigate this topic on your terms.
The Adjudication
How each panelist evaluated the evidence and arguments
The most reliable sources are PubMed (Sources 1 & 4, authority score 0.9-0.85), major medical institutions like UChicago Medicine and University of Missouri Health Care (Sources 3, 6, 7, 10, 20, 21), and MedicalNewsToday (Source 2), all of which consistently refute the claim by stating that spicy foods/capsaicin do not cause ulcers and may actually provide protective benefits through inhibiting acid secretion and stimulating protective mechanisms. Based on this overwhelming consensus from highly authoritative, independent medical sources that explicitly state spicy foods do not cause stomach ulcers, with the real causes being H. pylori bacteria and NSAIDs, the claim is false.
The proponent infers “can cause ulcers” from evidence that spicy foods can irritate existing ulcers and from advice to avoid them, but irritation/avoidance does not logically entail ulcer formation and Source 1's own conclusion explicitly denies causation (“not the cause for ulcer formation”), while multiple other sources also explicitly distinguish symptom worsening from causing ulcers (Sources 2, 3, 6, 18). Because the evidence directly refutes the causal claim and the proponent's chain relies on invalid inference beyond the evidence's scope, the claim is false.
The claim omits the key contextual distinction repeatedly made in the evidence: spicy foods may irritate symptoms or aggravate discomfort in people who already have an ulcer, but they are not shown to cause ulcer formation, with primary causes being H. pylori infection and NSAID use (Sources 2, 3, 7, 15, 18). With that context restored, the overall impression that spicy food can cause stomach ulcers is contradicted by the cited medical summaries and even by the PubMed review noting capsaicin is “not the cause for ulcer formation” and may be protective (Sources 1, 4).
Adjudication Summary
All three panelists independently rate the claim as False (2/10) with high confidence, so the consensus rule applies. Source quality: the most credible, independent medical references cited (PubMed reviews and major academic/health-system pages) explicitly state spicy foods/capsaicin do not cause ulcer formation and may be protective; they identify H. pylori and NSAID use as the main causes. Logic: the proponent's argument incorrectly infers causation from symptom irritation and from “avoid spicy foods” advice, which the same sources frame as symptom management, not ulcer causation. Context: the claim omits the key distinction between worsening symptoms of an existing ulcer vs causing a new ulcer, making the statement materially misleading and, as phrased (“can cause”), unsupported.
Consensus
Sources
Sources used in the analysis
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