As much I read about this particular study, in the group of the more spicy eaters, there where plenty of rural people and in the other group more urban people. So, this sounds to me, that there are different factors inside the study which are interconnected and the "evidence" could also be linked to some different factors, for example more healthy lifestyle of rural people (particular in China: I assume healthier air). In the article, I read, they even suspected, that more tea consume of the spicy group could also cause the positive effect.
So, every study should be taken with a grain of salt, particularly when the exact circumstances are not told.
> After controlling for family medical history, age, education, diabetes, smoking and many other variables
Did not convince me.
And as I stated, I read a different (German) source, where definitively other possible correlations where named -- when one group contains clearly more rural people as the other, the whole statement that "no clear rationale" can be found, is questionable in my opinion, even when it is not political correct in some countries, that urban people are living less healthy lives.
This has nothing to do with click-bait or not. It is just very questionable to me, that the study is methodical clean.
In my country, it is quite different. And I will not speculate further about a country, I don't know. I just wanted to say, that even when the authors of the study do not know the other variables and interconnections, there might be some.
That's not the point. The point would be that be that people who eat more spicy food live a little bit longer. It does not mean you don't die from other causes - obviously level of life is a large predictor for life expectancy.
"The spicier the food, the more water you drink (maybe)."
Negative. Water actually amplifies the sensation. The sugar in the desert counters the sensation, as does milk. If I go awhile without eating "11" hot, when I return I have to follow it with milk or sugar(or both=Thai Tea or Cafe Sua Da). Otherwise, the subsequent burning sensation can be quite unpleasant. I always go to "11" when I feel a cold or flu coming on to combat the contagion, it works 9 times out of 10. YMMV.
If I go too hot or if I'm making a really hot hot sauce, I'll go for citrus. The acid counters down the oils and help faster. In the sauce, it balances things. Same for pineapple.
...maybe. I saw another article about this yesterday, in which they stated that there were other variables in play that could have impacted the results, including a greater of variety of spices in spicier food. Capsaicin is a possible cause of the results, but not definitive
I think it's pretty common to eat milder foods when you are ill. I know I do. If that is universally true, and all else being equal, you could probably simplify this headline down to "getting sick less linked to a longer life."
Reminds me of the Dilbert cartoon (wish I could find it now) where the discussion was on how a survey showed that heathy people exercise more. Wally commented that's because sick people are too sick to exercise.
China has eight main cuisines related to different areas in China. Some of these cuisines are spicy and some are not.
Obviously a whole lot other things also differ together with the spices in these cuisines. It would be nice if they'd asked if the subjects identified with a specific cuisine/area.
There could also be a wealth relation. The poorer Guandong (Cantonese) kitchen has little less chili than the famously spicy Szechuan kitchen which is from a richer area.
That may be true historically, but today's Guangdong, wrapping around Hong Kong, home to Shenzhen and a vast number of exporters, is twice as rich as landlocked Sichuan:
It still makes no sense to me. There are numerous spices. But given that this is a Chinese study, maybe "spicy" means five-spice powder, or maybe just Sichuan pepper. And of course, health claims have also been asserted for several Indian spices. Personally, I'd go for a Goan/Sichuan hybrid :)
Edit: OK, I see "mainly chili peppers". So are chili peppers more commonly used in China than Sichuan pepper?
I don't understand; Sichuan pepper (花椒, huajiao) isn't spicy. Wikipedia confirms:
"Sichuan pepper's unique aroma and flavour is not hot or pungent like black, white, or chili peppers. Instead, it has slight lemony overtones and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth (caused by its 3% of hydroxy alpha sanshool) that sets the stage for hot spices."
Chinese cooking uses many different kinds of spicy peppers, however. For instance, heaven-facing peppers (朝天椒, chaotianjiao) are pretty common in Sichuan cooking. Maybe that's what you mean?
A co-author mentions they need more data. This reminded me of the huge study of diet and health outcomes in China by
T. Colin Cambell of Cornell in the late 1900's.
Very interesting study unfortunately the conclusions from the book has been debunked[0] a few times. It's a great example of how hard nutritional research is, even with an incredible big dataset and a bunch of very intelligent PHDs it's still very easy to come to the wrong conclusion.
I can highly recommend "Death by Food Pyramid" though, it's a very honest look into food science and the author is very honest about what we know (not a whole lot for sure but we have some strong indications that some diets seem to produce better results) and what we don't know.
One thing that I don't quite understand -- what is it about spicy food that makes it desirable? Esp. the super hot peppers? I know that I love them, but I can't really say why (after all, I normally try to avoid pain). The only thing I can think of is that part of the brain knows that the pain isn't "real" (that is, it isn't being caused by something that is damaging you), yet another part is releasing endorphins to counteract the pain, causing a mild euphoria. But I haven't really found much information to back up this theory.
I do know that at times when I get a spell of mild depression, munching on some hot peppers seems to pull me out of it.
I think the endorphin theory is a pretty common explanation, but I think for me and for many others it's largely about flavour. I enjoy the flavour of chili peppers, and I also enjoy how spiciness brings out other flavours in food and makes it richer and more interesting.
>I also enjoy how spiciness brings out other flavours in food and makes it richer and more interesting
What? I do like spicy food occasionally, but my main gripe with "very" spicy food is not how painful it is, but how the spiciness overwhelms all other flavors and it's the only thing you can taste. Like you might as well be eating chili paste because you can't taste anything else anyway.
well, you are simply having too much chilli in the food. good curry for example isn't one that burns your mouth (if you eat it regularly), but rather enrich all flavors present, including many other herbs and spices. if you don't feel anything else but burn, your cook ain't that good :)
Maybe, I had just observed that others seem really to enjoy the overwhelming burning sensation and drew conclusions that something must wrong with me if I want to taste something more than chili in my food.
Agreed - I have no problem with Nando's "Extra Hot" on the heat level but the spice overpowers everything else to the point of silliness. Dropping down to "Hot" keeps it spicy enough but without drowning the rest.
>"The endorphins work to block the heat. The body produces them in response to the heat, which it senses as pain," said Paul Bosland, co-founder and director of New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute. [0]
Since some comments are trying to explain away the findings, here is a quote from the article about what variables were controlled for and the results:
> After controlling for family medical history, age, education, diabetes, smoking and many other variables, the researchers found that compared with eating hot food, mainly chili peppers, less than once a week, having it once or twice a week resulted in a 10 percent reduced overall risk for death. Consuming spicy food six to seven times a week reduced the risk by 14 percent.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that you eat less food when it's particularly spicy? Fasting/caloric intake reduction and better health/longer life have been correlated for a while.
That's unlikely. People will adjust the spiciness before adjusting their usual portions. Don't forget that habitual users will develop tolerance to capsaicin by reducing the number of receptors, so what may seem as a high level to someone may be perceived as normal by someone else.
No, people that routinely eat extremely spicy food eat as much of it as anything else. It might put off the occasional eater of spicy food, but regular consumption depletes the neurotransmitters that generate the effect. It is an acquired immunity that can quickly escalate the level of spiciness required to perceive it. (You lose that immunity relatively quickly though.) Being able to eat almost arbitrarily spicy food is a trivially acquired ability.
Source: I eat quite a lot of habaneros and thai chilis, mostly because those are the peppers that taste strongly "spicy" to me on a day to day basis. If I eat too much on an ongoing basis, even the habaneros start to lose their spiciness. Most people have a "spiciness" threshold so low that the pepper is barely detectable to me. I was not born this way, peppers have been a regular part of my diet because I like the flavor and that confers a natural immunity to the effects.
On the other hand, keep in mind it's an observational study, not an experiment. As such, it's highly succeptible so various biases, including P-hacking (choosing a hypothesis based on data). Most importantly, keep in mind the astonishing number of false & dubious nutritional recommendations made in the past (salt is bad, salt is ok, fat is bad, fat is good, sugar is good, sugar is bad, cholesterol is bad, cholesterol is fine, ...).
I just want to point out how terrible the wording is on that paragraph. While I understand what the author means, that is different from what they wrote. I wouldn't bring it up if it was something casual, but come on... this is on *.nytimes.com.
It's impossible to "reduce overall risk for death" - we're all going to die. One may, however, reduce overall risk for death within a given timeframe.
edit: now that I read it again, that first sentence is a total train-wreck.
"Spicy" things tend to have anti-microbial properties. That could certainly trigger a beneficial intestinal flora change--especially in places without a good refrigerated handling chain.
Spicy food also has a tendency to clear sinuses. I believe a couple of studies have shown that clearing sinuses occasionally (but not too often) is beneficial.
I've heard that the pain response that the spices trigger somehow activates your immune system or something like that, though as you eat more spicy food you build up a tolerance so I'm not sure how that factors in.
I love spicy food so this is great news. But lately I've been wondering about the potential effect of spicy food on gut bacteria. Anyone who's had a painful bowl movement after eating some high Scoville level hot sauce knows what I'm talking about.
"rapid adoption of new drugs has substantial benefits in the form of increased life expectancy, higher productivity and lower non-drug health care expenditures" - Do more drugs!
First thing that came to my mind when I read this was how the ancient Egyptians used spices in their mummification process [1]. I guess history repeats itself once again.
That's always the same story. A group of researchers finds a funny correlation in the data. They don't know the cause of the correlation, but they just write an article explaining that. Of course, the article if full of conditionals and sentences like: "this should be investigates further".
Then, a journalist finds this paper, eliminates all the conditionals and writes a click-bait article, so his employer can earn money from the announcers. Profit.
And I am not talking only about this article in particular, but about all the scientific journalism in general.
You need a genetic variant that is pretty well studied and doesn't have too many effects, just a small handful that are well characterized.
A well characterized variant is in ALDH2. [1] People with normal ALDH2 metabolize alcohol normally. Those with variant ALDH2 process acetaldehyde poorly, so this unpleasant metabolite remains in their blood longer, causing discomfort and flush. Those with 0 variant alleles drink more than those with 1 allele; those with both mutations in alleles drink the least.
Let's say you had some variant like that, but for spicy food metabolism. The more variants in this spicy food metabolism gene, the more spicy the food felt to you so you might eat less.
If those who would be genetically expected to tolerate more spicy food survived longer than you would otherwise expect in a (genetic) dose-dependent fashion, then this would be suggestive that spicy food intake might be in the causal pathway of longevity. You would have to do additional work to be sure that the gene didn't do other things in metabolism (pleiotropy) that directly had effects on longevity.
This is exactly how news is created these days, unfortunately. "Cancer cure using garlic!" is actually "Long term study of 1000 garlic eaters shows a 5% decrease in the incidence of gastrointestinal cancers."
You know… I'm not sure the press and the readers are more culpable that scientists and scientific institutions.
First, Universities have PR offices, a army or administrators and marketing people. They want attention and "clickbait"in their own way. It's not like they don't know that a nutrition study finding a correlation between chili and stomach fat will get traction in the world of "one weird trick." I don't think they are ticking all the boxes and misinterpreted despite all efforts.
Second, a lot of the science just isn't good. Not enough independently corroborating studies, hypothesis fitting… The world of health and nutrition has produced bad information that passed through to official recommendation used by governments, doctors… remember when we were supposed to be scared of eggs because of cholesterol? What was the evidence for that?
Third, science has rejected other knowledge systems like folk traditions, wives tails and such. That's great when they give us an alternative. The planets are not being pulled across the sky by chariots, no argument. But when it comes to nutrition, if you look back over the last 2 generations… listening to your grandmother would have been better than listening to science. They haven't earned credibility of "science."
TL;DR: "As the authors acknowledge, a cause and effect relation cannot be inferred from their work. In this prospective study, Lv and colleagues have shown temporality of association, but we need to evaluate additional criteria to judge the strength of evidence. Their findings should be considered hypothesis generating, not definitive, and will undoubtedly encourage further work."
> As the study, published in the BMJ on Tuesday, was observational, conclusions could not be drawn about cause and effect but the team of international authors, led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, suggested that more research could lead to dietary advice being updated. Experts warned that the study did not provide evidence to “prompt a change in diet”.
Take this with the same perspective as how the article treats correlation/causation, but I'll share an interesting anecdote. I have several family members in their 90's that love to put cayenne pepper in/on almost anything. One even puts it in orange juice if you can believe that. I tried it once... That fellow started smoking when he was in WWII and hasn't stopped. The less-eccentric/vegan/non-smoker members of the family seem to make it to late 70's.
Take this with the same perspective as how the article treats correlation/causation, but I'll share an interesting anecdote. I have several family members in their 90's that love to put cayenne pepper in/on almost anything. One even puts it in orange juice if you can believe that. I tried it once... That fellow started smoking when he was in WWII and hasn't stopped. The less-eccentric/vegan/non-smoker members of the family seem to make it to late 70's.
Correlation vs causation. Is it possible that people who eat the peppers also eat lots of vegetables as opposed to starchy carbs? Definitely. Is it possible people who, say, exercise more are for some reason more inclined to eat spicy foods.
They can control for any number of things, but this isn't science, it's a correlation and anyone who has taken an intro to statistics class shouldn't be fooled by a pseudoscience blog post. Really surprised to see this on the front page of a community which prides itself on its scientific knowledge.
No, you are not correct, and you're engaging in a classic middlebrow dismissal.
This is a scientific research paper published in the BMJ, and a well-documented, controlled cohort study. It's pretty much the opposite of pseudoscience. The blog post is perfectly restrained and does not claim that eating spicy food will increase lifespan, instead reporting (accurately) that the two factors appear to be linked.
I don't think there's any truth to this. Because here in Andhra (India) people only eat spicy food and I see most people don't live longer than 70-80yrs. To quantify the spiciness: Most Indians from other states just run away from Andhra cuisine
With 65 being the average life expectancy in India (vs. 76 in the USA), maybe 80 isn't all that bad? Drop those same Andrha folks in a cleaner, less stressful spot on the globe and maybe they'd live 90-100s?
I don't have any stats to support my 70-80yrs lifetime claim. It's just my observation. And, I didn't think about how it compares with our national average. Looks like a bit better
I have andhra blood. My outer family eats medium spicy stuff. we eat lot of vegetables(we're vegetarians). Average life span about 75 years. There are parts of Andhra Pradesh where they eat too much spicy food. The life span in such areas is less than 65 years. I'm assuming that the article is not referring to this spice level. They're probably suggesting to the average Indian spice levels (which is higher compared to the rest of the world -- especially European and American).
Well, if that is true, then why is German statistically the country with the highest average age in the world (on par with Japan), even though their food is quite bland?
"Well, if that is true, then why are Germany and Japan statistically the countries with the highest average age in the world, even though both countries' food is quite bland?"
Because access to healthcare and the quality thereof dominates; and German randomly fall at the upper-ends of the acceptable statistical bounds when comparing Western countries? :)
There is a common link in all these longevity studies, whether it be women, mexican americans, people who eat spicy food, etc, and that is height, which has been shown to correlate negatively with longevity (not withstanding malnutrition).
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 210 ms ] threadSo, every study should be taken with a grain of salt, particularly when the exact circumstances are not told.
For once this article makes it very clear there is no clear rationale for correlation at this point. It's certainly not your usual clickbait article.
Did not convince me.
And as I stated, I read a different (German) source, where definitively other possible correlations where named -- when one group contains clearly more rural people as the other, the whole statement that "no clear rationale" can be found, is questionable in my opinion, even when it is not political correct in some countries, that urban people are living less healthy lives.
This has nothing to do with click-bait or not. It is just very questionable to me, that the study is methodical clean.
Actually people in urban centers live clearly longer than in the country side. So I'm not sure what you are talking about.
This could be related to the more exercise they get...
There's also the link to certain spices (like chili peppers) that are highly anti-inflammatory.
Personally, the more spicy food I eat, the more I have dessert.
Negative. Water actually amplifies the sensation. The sugar in the desert counters the sensation, as does milk. If I go awhile without eating "11" hot, when I return I have to follow it with milk or sugar(or both=Thai Tea or Cafe Sua Da). Otherwise, the subsequent burning sensation can be quite unpleasant. I always go to "11" when I feel a cold or flu coming on to combat the contagion, it works 9 times out of 10. YMMV.
Yes. However, if it is very cold water, then it lowers the mouth temperature, which could take it below the 'heat' threshold.
You'd have to keep drinking it though, because after a moment, the temperature returns to normal and the burning sensation returns.
Obviously a whole lot other things also differ together with the spices in these cuisines. It would be nice if they'd asked if the subjects identified with a specific cuisine/area.
There could also be a wealth relation. The poorer Guandong (Cantonese) kitchen has little less chili than the famously spicy Szechuan kitchen which is from a richer area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative...
Edit: OK, I see "mainly chili peppers". So are chili peppers more commonly used in China than Sichuan pepper?
"Sichuan pepper's unique aroma and flavour is not hot or pungent like black, white, or chili peppers. Instead, it has slight lemony overtones and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth (caused by its 3% of hydroxy alpha sanshool) that sets the stage for hot spices."
Chinese cooking uses many different kinds of spicy peppers, however. For instance, heaven-facing peppers (朝天椒, chaotianjiao) are pretty common in Sichuan cooking. Maybe that's what you mean?
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
I can highly recommend "Death by Food Pyramid" though, it's a very honest look into food science and the author is very honest about what we know (not a whole lot for sure but we have some strong indications that some diets seem to produce better results) and what we don't know.
[0] http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fal...
I do know that at times when I get a spell of mild depression, munching on some hot peppers seems to pull me out of it.
Do you like them "straight up" though? For example, I hate the taste of jalapeños, but I have no problem eating them as part of a meal.
What? I do like spicy food occasionally, but my main gripe with "very" spicy food is not how painful it is, but how the spiciness overwhelms all other flavors and it's the only thing you can taste. Like you might as well be eating chili paste because you can't taste anything else anyway.
>"The endorphins work to block the heat. The body produces them in response to the heat, which it senses as pain," said Paul Bosland, co-founder and director of New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute. [0]
[0] http://abcnews.go.com/Health/capsaicin-ingredient-hot-pepper...
Also this answers your question: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/sep/14/chilli-h...
> After controlling for family medical history, age, education, diabetes, smoking and many other variables, the researchers found that compared with eating hot food, mainly chili peppers, less than once a week, having it once or twice a week resulted in a 10 percent reduced overall risk for death. Consuming spicy food six to seven times a week reduced the risk by 14 percent.
That's unlikely. People will adjust the spiciness before adjusting their usual portions. Don't forget that habitual users will develop tolerance to capsaicin by reducing the number of receptors, so what may seem as a high level to someone may be perceived as normal by someone else.
Source: I eat quite a lot of habaneros and thai chilis, mostly because those are the peppers that taste strongly "spicy" to me on a day to day basis. If I eat too much on an ongoing basis, even the habaneros start to lose their spiciness. Most people have a "spiciness" threshold so low that the pepper is barely detectable to me. I was not born this way, peppers have been a regular part of my diet because I like the flavor and that confers a natural immunity to the effects.
It's impossible to "reduce overall risk for death" - we're all going to die. One may, however, reduce overall risk for death within a given timeframe.
edit: now that I read it again, that first sentence is a total train-wreck.
Spicy food also has a tendency to clear sinuses. I believe a couple of studies have shown that clearing sinuses occasionally (but not too often) is beneficial.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1030_digmumm...
Mendelian randomization, sometimes.
You need a genetic variant that is pretty well studied and doesn't have too many effects, just a small handful that are well characterized.
A well characterized variant is in ALDH2. [1] People with normal ALDH2 metabolize alcohol normally. Those with variant ALDH2 process acetaldehyde poorly, so this unpleasant metabolite remains in their blood longer, causing discomfort and flush. Those with 0 variant alleles drink more than those with 1 allele; those with both mutations in alleles drink the least.
Let's say you had some variant like that, but for spicy food metabolism. The more variants in this spicy food metabolism gene, the more spicy the food felt to you so you might eat less.
If those who would be genetically expected to tolerate more spicy food survived longer than you would otherwise expect in a (genetic) dose-dependent fashion, then this would be suggestive that spicy food intake might be in the causal pathway of longevity. You would have to do additional work to be sure that the gene didn't do other things in metabolism (pleiotropy) that directly had effects on longevity.
1 = http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3525274/
First, Universities have PR offices, a army or administrators and marketing people. They want attention and "clickbait"in their own way. It's not like they don't know that a nutrition study finding a correlation between chili and stomach fat will get traction in the world of "one weird trick." I don't think they are ticking all the boxes and misinterpreted despite all efforts.
Second, a lot of the science just isn't good. Not enough independently corroborating studies, hypothesis fitting… The world of health and nutrition has produced bad information that passed through to official recommendation used by governments, doctors… remember when we were supposed to be scared of eggs because of cholesterol? What was the evidence for that?
Third, science has rejected other knowledge systems like folk traditions, wives tails and such. That's great when they give us an alternative. The planets are not being pulled across the sky by chariots, no argument. But when it comes to nutrition, if you look back over the last 2 generations… listening to your grandmother would have been better than listening to science. They haven't earned credibility of "science."
TL;DR: "As the authors acknowledge, a cause and effect relation cannot be inferred from their work. In this prospective study, Lv and colleagues have shown temporality of association, but we need to evaluate additional criteria to judge the strength of evidence. Their findings should be considered hypothesis generating, not definitive, and will undoubtedly encourage further work."
They can control for any number of things, but this isn't science, it's a correlation and anyone who has taken an intro to statistics class shouldn't be fooled by a pseudoscience blog post. Really surprised to see this on the front page of a community which prides itself on its scientific knowledge.
This is a scientific research paper published in the BMJ, and a well-documented, controlled cohort study. It's pretty much the opposite of pseudoscience. The blog post is perfectly restrained and does not claim that eating spicy food will increase lifespan, instead reporting (accurately) that the two factors appear to be linked.
Did you even bother reading either?
Spurious Correlation is a good source of these: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
FTFY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
Japan and Germany are the ones with highest median age.
Then again, why do you cite the average or median age if the original article is about life expectancy?
My corrected response to your original comment would be: Because the birth rates are so low that the lack of children "raises" the median age.
Or kebabs with spicy sauces