We all know someone who simply cannot contemplate eating a meal unless they’ve added lashings of their favourite hot sauce, whether Sriracha, Cholula, gochujang, Tabasco or your ayi’s homemade lajiao jiang. Well, it turns out that rabid spice fiend whose taste buds were surely incinerated long ago may have the last laugh.
A new study published in the BMJ has found that people who eat spicy food six or seven days a week have a 14 percent lower risk of death compared with those who rarely or never eat spicy fare (less than once a week). Even a moderate intake of spice (one to five times a week) offers a 10 percent reduced mortality risk.
The seven-year study led by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences compared the chilli consumption of almost half a million Chinese people from 10 provinces across the country.
Looking at the list of provinces the study participants hailed from, the researchers seem to have been careful to draw eaters from across China’s diverse culinary map – from the dumpling scoffers of far northeastern Heilongjiang to the seafood lovers of tropical Hainan Island and the Lanzhou noodle slurpers of northwestern Gansu. And yes, of course, China’s titans of spice – Sichuan and Hunan – were among the study locations.
Researchers pointed to the anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-obesity and anti-cancer properties of chilli and its bioactive compound capsaicin as possible reasons for the findings.
However, as we all know, correlation does not prove causation, so the findings should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Speaking to the Guardian, Kevin McConway, professor of applied statistics at the Open University, warned British readers in particular not to view the study as an invitation to go “for several pints of beer and a hot curry.”
“Maybe this is something in the way spices are used in Chinese cooking, or [it is] related to other things people eat or drink with the spicy food. Maybe it has something to do with the sort of people, in China, who tend to eat more spicy food.”
So while this doesn’t apply to you suckers in the UK, you can find us mopping the sweat from our brows and knocking back Tsingtaos over a plate of tongue-busting spicy bullfrog.
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