Could chili really be the spice of longer life?

By Shan Juan and Cheng Yingqi (China Daily) Updated: 2015-10-08 07:47

Recent research suggests that people who regularly eat spicy food may have a lower risk of premature death from cancer or coronary and respiratory diseases, but some experts are warning that excessive consumption could result in other illnesses. Shan Juan and Cheng Yingqi report.

Diners enjoy a mammoth spicy hot pot, 10 meters in diameter and weighing 31 metric tons, during a food festival in Chongqing in November. Jing Haiquan / Xinhua

Sit down in any restaurant in any Chinatown in a Western country and it's a fair bet that if you are not ethnically Chinese or don't speak reasonable Mandarin you will be offered the "regular menu", featuring localized versions of favorites such as sweet and sour chicken and other adapted dishes.

It's long been known that almost every Chinese restaurant in Western countries has a "secret" menu offering authentic food that only Chinese customers are thought likely to enjoy; such as noodles in a spicy broth as red as a fire truck.

The restaurant owners may have created the secret menu to prevent customers from encountering foods deemed unsuitable for the average Western palate - duck neck, chicken feet and snake and turtle soup, for example - and to protect them from burning their tongues. However, by doing so they may have also inadvertently hidden a different secret - that of a longer, healthier life.

The results of a study of the dietary habits of 500,000 Chinese people conducted by scientists from Harvard and Peking universities suggests that those who ate spicy food three times a week had a 14 percent lower risk of premature death from certain illnesses than diners who preferred blander food.

The survey was part of the China Kadoorie Biobank Study, a program that aims to identify the causes of major illnesses such as stroke, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease.

"Spicy food is extremely popular in China. That prompted us to conduct the study," Lu Qi, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote in an e-mail exchange with China Daily.

According to Lu, there is growing evidence, albeit mostly from experimental research, to support the view that spices or their active components, such as capsaicin, can benefit human health, although there is a lack of demographic data to support the conclusions.

Capsaicin is the compound responsible for the burning sensation that accompanies eating chili, the fruit of the capsicum plant. The seeds of the capsicum are mainly dispersed by birds, and some scientists believe the fiery taste is a natural defense and is intended to discourage consumption by mammals with molar teeth, which would grind, and therefore destroy, the seeds. It's also believed that capsaicin can act as an anti-fungal agent, preventing potential deadly fungi, such as fusarium, from attacking the plants.