From the brains behind brains on, this is the Moment of Um.

Answering those questions that make you go...

Um, um, um, um, um, um, comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Manico Wilhelm.

Um. Let's say your best friend has a hot pepper eating YouTube channel, and she asked you to be your next guest.

You've got this one in the bag,

because you like spicy food, and it doesn't even bother you that much. So you eat one pepper,

then another, then another, and you're doing great. But there's one thing that's giving you

away. Your nose is running. This is embarrassing, because you wanted to look tough,

but it's like your body can't help

but have this response. What's causing this snotty situation? Hi, my name is Trousa from

Indianapolis, Indiana. My question is, why do hot sauce make your nose run.

So hot sauce, many people find delicious and savory, but others can find it really irritating or they might not even like hot sauce.

I'm Dr. Eric Voigt.

I am an otolaryngologist that is an ear, nose, and throat doctor.

And we are doctors that take care of any problems related to your ears, your nose, or your throat.

The reason hot sauce makes our noses run is that hot sauce contains hot peppers.

And hot peppers contain an irritant called capsaation.

And this irritant is something that triggers a response in our body that our body wants to get rid of it.

Our body wants to expel it.

So our body has reflexes to get things out of it.

So in particular, if there's a piece of dust that gets in your eye or in your nose,

your reflexes are there to sneeze it out, to tear it out of your eye. And when an irritant

...