By Andrew Merle
Good news if you like spicy food! Research shows eating spicy food helps stave off premature death. In a large study, analyzing more than 500,000 people, those who ate spicy foods six or seven days a week had a 14% lower risk of dying than people who ate spicy foods less than once a week.
Habitual consumption of spicy foods was especially powerful at reducing deaths from cancer, ischemic heart diseases, and respiratory diseases. In that study, fresh and dried chili peppers were the most commonly used spices among those who ate spicy foods. It turns out chili peppers are especially protective against disease and death.
Another big study, looking at 570,000 people across four different countries, showed that eating chili peppers slashed the risk of death by 25%, including a 26% lower risk of cardiovascular deaths, and 23% fewer cancer deaths, compared to people who never or rarely consumed chili peppers.
The benefits of chili peppers are attributed to their main active component called capsaicin, which has been shown to have anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, and blood-glucose regulating effects.
If you want to live longer, it would be smart to eat more spicy foods in general, and chili peppers in particular. I get my spicy fix by sprinkling red chili flakes on a variety of foods, including omelets, salads, and pizza.
Andrew Merle writes about the healthiest way to live for media outlets including Medium, Fast Company, TIME, The Observer, Business Insider, HuffPost, Quartz, and Thrive Global. Learn more at AndrewMerle.com, which is recognized as one of the best blogs on the Internet. He is a Certified Sports Nutritionist and holds a Certificate in Nutrition from Harvard’s Department of Nutrition.
