Eating Spicy Food Linked to a Longer Life

I have a secondary systemic inflammation to due a genetic condition that make my mitochondria to malfunction. Usual symptoms include a profound fatigue after working-out and muscle weakness, specially in the extra-ocular muscles.

I have been always centered around supplements to improve the energy output (ATP) of my mitochondria (Coq10, ALCAR, idebedone ... you name it). While this made a big difference in my everyday energy levels, I always felt that this systemic fatigue couldn't come only from a energy deficit, as I was able to workout with pretty good intensity and decent weights (I can squat 1.5 my body weight).

The first hint came a couple of months ago when a friend of mine went to the doctor because he was also profoundly fatigued and the doctor told him that he had some kind of auto-immune disease that was causing a systemic inflammation and this systemic inflammation was likely the main cause for the fatigue.

The second hint came right here from HN [1]. So, I just added turmeric extract to my daily regimen 10 days ago and the results have been really impressive so far. I can recover much easier from my workouts and my general energy level has also improved a lot, specially during the mornings. It is too soon to tell, but after so many years trying so many supplements I have developed a anti-placebo and anti-bullshit sense for all these things, and this one is working for real.

Now, I am not meaning that spicy food will make you live longer, but it seems clear that they have some potent active substances that "do" something in our bodies.

I am now trying to add some spicy foods to my meals. The first one has been a very simple curry rice with black pepper (to improve absorption) to eat it post-workout.

Some relevant references:

Curcumin database [2]

Good general info about turmeric [3]

Mitochondria as a target in the therapeutic properties of curcumin [4]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9960441

[2] http://www.crdb.in/

[3] http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=78

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25243820

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."

Jokes apart on a more serious note the crux of the study is --

"Compared with those who ate spicy foods less than once a week, those who consumed spicy foods 6 or 7 days a week showed a 14% relative risk reduction in total mortality. "

Although this study is very vague, in Asian cultures health benefits of spices and various plant products is well known.

Ginger : Has Cox2 inhibitory function. Acting in a similar way to Aspirin and other NSAIDS. Helps prevent heart attacks

Curcumin : found in turmeric has anti-inflammatory similar to ginger but is poorly absorbed. Hence mad more benefits for the Gut.

Arjuna Terminalis : Bark of the plant is known to have anti-hypertensive benefits.

And the list goes on.

The problem is that in the traditional way these plants are consumed (unprocessed in food and NOT in EXTRACT form) these have very poor Bioavailability.

The only way these so called health benefits would be apparent is if they were part of the diet (you eat them everyday - as noted in the study) or they are consumed in the form of Extract.

Also many of these compounds can not be patented and this deters the pharmaceutical industry to make large investments in the clinical trails and bringing them to the market.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/?term=curcumin

http://time.com/3984504/turmeric-supplements-curcumin/

My mother is the kind who changes the whole family's diet when she reads some sufficiently convincing diet book or study. At one point we ate dissociated food. At another point it was blood type food. At another point it was raw roots or something. I love my mother and she's an excelent cook, and she never forced us to eat according to the books, but she would be very insistent, because there were studies that showed ...

Most of the time the results of those studies were disproved, either by another experiment or by some technical issue with the way the study was conducted.

Just like there were studies that smoking is actually good for you and studies that showed that children who drink sugar soda from an early age are heathier.

The point I'm trying to make is that these studies are not just 'informative', they have real consequences on real families. There are families out there who will start eating hot food just because they've read this study.

I hope they don't torture themselves for nothing.