Eating spicy food, especially chili pepper, may improve health, researchers say today.
In today’s (5 August) British Medical Journal, Dr Lu Qi of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA, and colleagues write that the increased use of spices as flavourings in foods is a major trend worldwide.
They add that: "The beneficial effects of spices and their bioactive ingredients such as capsaicin have long been documented in experimental or small sized population studies."
Results have pointed to a lower rate of cancer, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal conditions, and beneficial effects on appetite.
The research involved people from ten geographically diverse areas across China. A total of 199,293 men and 288,082 women aged 30 to 79 years were followed for about seven years. All were free of cancer, heart disease, or stroke at the start.
The most common spice to be used was the chili pepper and the study showed this had special benefits.
There were a total of 11,820 deaths among the men and 8,404 among the women. "Spicy food consumption showed highly consistent inverse associations with total mortality among both men and women after adjustment for other known or potential risk factors," the team reports.
Those who ate spicy food every day of the week were at the lowest risk of death – 14% lower than those who ate spicy foods less than once a week. This benefit appeared to be stronger for those who did not drink alcohol.
Reductions in mortality from cancer, ischemic heart diseases, and respiratory diseases individually were also linked to consumption of spices.
Lv, J. et al. Consumption of spicy foods and total and cause specific mortality: population based cohort study. BMJ 4 August 2015 doi: 10.1136/bmj.h3942 [abstract]
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