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?
Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
61–70 of 122 posts
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#62Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#63One 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…
Jury is out, but it is possible that Capcisin produces anti-depressent-like properties ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22542657 ) Also this answers your question: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/sep/14/chilli-h...
My personal experience is mild elation and a brow sweat, best case. I can easily believe capsaicin has anti-depressant properties.
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#64except if you have GERD.
True. That makes everything hard.
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#65I don't understand why these studies never seem to control for height.
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#66Well, 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?"
FTFY
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#67Well, 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?
Because population aging is more driven by birth rate and immigration policy than life expectancy.
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#68Since 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 r…
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.
> you eat less food when it's particularly spicy
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.
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#69Well, 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?
Germany is nowhere near the top (#19 with 9 other countries) although there's also not much lacking either
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...
Re: Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life
#70That'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 m…
There's a comic for this -^_^- http://i.imgur.com/833CgHX.png
And here's the actual source: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174