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If you don’t like spicy food, this may not be the kind of finding that you like. But a new study has now shown that eating spicy foods can actually reduce your mortality risk.
We already know that spicy foods are great for cleaning out your sinuses and can be good for your digestive system.
But now, data from a large Chinese study has found that people who ate spicy food (usually including chili peppers, chili sauce, or chili oil) anywhere from six to seven times a week lowered their mortality risk by 14 percent.
Not only did it just lower participants’ risk of mortality, but it also lowered risk for things like cancer, heart, and respiratory disease.
This would be a pretty groundbreaking discovery if it were true. It may mean that it’s worth it to develop a taste for spicy foods at last.
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Though this was an enormous study, consisting of 487,375 participants over seven years, researchers can’t definitively prove that the spicy foods were the main factor for lowered mortality.
They speculate that it could also be some kind of lifestyle condition that goes along with spicy eating, like living in a rural area or eating certain foods with the chili.
Whatever the connection, this study will definitely lead to further research into the health benefits of spicy food, to see whether or not these health benefits could have some merits.
As it stands, spicy foods are known to discourage obesity, and are great for our gut bacteria, so eating it a few times certainly won’t hurt! But as of right now, you probably don’t have to eat it every day.
Would you eat spicy food every day if it meant you lived longer?
Photo Copyright © 2010 Bart Speelman/Flickr
