Sneeze your standard after you put a peppermint or candy with a pungent taste in your mouth. You're not the only one. And believe it or not:it's an anomaly that you can't do anything about.
The abnormality is called Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome. It is estimated to affect 18 to 35 percent of people in the United States. Not only will it make you sneeze if you eat something sharp like chewing gum or peppermint, it can also make you sneeze if you look at the sunlight or if you've eaten enough.
How strange is this mechanism? To understand why your body works this way, it is useful to know that the nose is the first organ exposed to external substances. When you sneeze, thousands of bacteria leave your nose. In this way, your nose protects your body against bacteria from the outside.
Menthol stimulates the palate where the three-branch nerve runs. This creates a stimulus in the nose. Your brain thinks there's something in your nose and that makes you sneeze. Menthol is not harmful, but an unknown substance for the body and the protective mechanism is set in motion unconsciously.
When you look into the sun, the same thing happens:a nerve is stimulated through the eyes that signals your brain to sneeze.
