Used for centuries as a spice in Asia, turmeric has recently made its way into trendy cafes around the world as part of the “golden latte” and has become popular as a nutritional supplement that boosts immunity and protects against disease. Meanwhile, cayenne pepper gained notoriety in 2013 as an ingredient in the “Beyoncé Diet” for weight loss, which was subsequently heavily criticized by the British Association of Nutritionist Doctors, who called such a diet dangerous.
For hundreds of years, people have been adding black pepper or a hot chili pepper to their food or brewing tea with ginger. But it is only recently that some spices have gained unofficial status as healing superfoods. But are spices really good for our health, or can they even protect us from disease? And can they harm us?
Chili pepper (red hot chili pepper) is one of the most well-known and popular spices in the world. Its effect on our health has been studied in many studies, and the results are inconclusive.
Many studies have examined the effects of chili peppers on human health, and the results are inconclusive. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. The end of the story. Advertising podcasts. The main active ingredient in chili peppers is capsaicin. When we eat hot peppers, molecules of capsaicin affect the temperature receptors in our bodies, which send a signal to the brain: creating a sensation of warmth.
Some research seems to support the idea that capsaicin may help us live longer. In 2019, an Italian study found that people who ate spicy foods seasoned with chili peppers four times a week had a lower risk of dying than those who never ate chili peppers (researchers adjusted for factors like smoking, exercise, and overall diet quality). In 2015, scientists who tracked the chili pepper consumption and health of nearly half a million adult Chinese made the same discovery. Those who ate spicy foods almost every day had a 14% lower risk of dying during the study period than those who ate spicy foods less than once a week.
One study found that people who eat hot peppers almost every day have a lower risk of premature death. But does this only apply to chili? “The main findings were that a higher amount of spices in food was associated with a lower risk of death, especially from cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases,” says Lu Qi, professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. However, all of this does not mean that our health will improve – or that it will protect us from disease – as soon as we start consuming large amounts of hot peppers. At least not in the short term. It is important to understand that the Chinese study followed people for an average of seven years. So even if chili pepper did have a protective effect on the health of the participants (and not just those who ate it were healthier to begin with), this effect increased over a long period of time, and certainly not within weeks or months.
Professor Zhi tried to separate the effects of chili pepper consumption from everything else, taking into account age, gender, education level, marital status, diet, and other factors such as alcohol consumption, smoking, and physical activity. According to the professor, the lower risk of death among those who eat chili may be partly due to the action of capsaicin. “It has been shown that certain ingredients in spicy foods (such as capsaicin) improve metabolism, particularly the lipid profile, blood cholesterol levels and inflammatory processes, and this partly explains what we observed in our study.”
Capsaicin, the main ingredient in hot peppers, may lower blood cholesterol levels. Some studies have shown that capsaicin can increase the amount of energy burned and reduce appetite. Zumin Shi, an associate professor at Qatar University’s Department of Nutrition, has found that consumption of hot peppers is associated with a lower risk of obesity and is beneficial for reducing high blood pressure. And when she started studying the effects of that on human cognitive function, she expected chili to work there, too. And it worked – just not in the way Zoomin Shi had expected. In the adult Chinese who ate more chili, there was a decline in this function. This was particularly noticeable in the case of memory: consuming more than 50 grams of hot peppers per day was associated with nearly double the risk of memory decline – at least according to the participants themselves. (It should be noted, however, that such self-reported data are generally not considered reliable.) The sensation of heat that comes from eating chili peppers has long intrigued scientists. It may partly explain why regular consumption of hot peppers has been linked to a decline in cognitive function: this sensation is the result of how plants have evolved to protect themselves from disease and parasites. “Some plants have evolved to taste bitter or pungent, but it’s even better when the plant itself can produce toxins, just like a predator,” says Kirsten Brandt, Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Food Research at Newcastle University, UK. But such relationships tend to affect humans much less than insects. “A drop of toxin can even be beneficial-for example, caffeine, which speeds up our metabolism and makes us feel more alert,” she says. “But in large quantities, toxins will harm you.” On the other hand, even if a particular combination of spices can be beneficial to us, we rarely consume enough to produce that effect.
Normally, we never consume so many spices that it would affect our health in any way. Let’s take polyphenols, compounds found in many plants that have anti-inflammatory effects. Due in part to the high content of polyphenols in spices, they are attributed with healing properties. However, the analysis of studies conducted in 2014 showed that it is still unclear whether the relatively small amount of polyphenols we consume from spices affects our health.
Another popular spice that is said to be beneficial is turmeric, and its usefulness is usually explained by the presence of curcumin, a small molecule found in turmeric. It is used in alternative medicine to relieve inflammation, stress, and many other conditions. However, there is no reliable information that turmeric is beneficial. Numerous studies have shown that curcumin can have anti-cancer effects in the laboratory. However, laboratory conditions are very different from those found in the human body. And the fact that curcumin is poorly soluble in water means that our bodies will not be able to properly utilize it when we get it from food with turmeric.
The growing interest in spices as alternative medicine that we are currently seeing in the West can be compared to the interest last seen in the Middle Ages, when spices were believed to have healing properties, notes Paul Freedman, professor of history at Yale University.
The last time the West showed such interest in the healing properties of spices was in the Middle Ages. “Spices were used to somehow balance the food,” Friedman explains. “People thought of certain foods as hot, cold, moist, or dry. They wanted balance.” For example, fish was considered cold and moist, while spices were considered hot and dry. The idea of using food as medicine is based on Ayurvedic medicine, which has been practiced in India for thousands of years. “In many Western countries, where such ideas are new, the concept of balance is being embraced by modern ‘New Age’ medicine,” says Friedman. “Our modern fascination with spices takes us not just back 50 years, but straight to the Middle Ages. Half a century ago, a solid wall separated modern medicine with antibiotics from superstitious medicine,” he says.
One of the things Katherine Nelson, a research professor at the University of Minnesota, studies is the feasibility of using certain molecules and compounds as new drugs. She decided to explore this question with curcumin. Nelson discovered that curcumin is completely unsuitable for use in drugs because its molecules are not bioavailable. This means that the body cannot use them after they are digested. They are poorly absorbed by the small intestine – their structure can change when they bind to proteins in the small and large intestines. As a result, the effects of curcumin are virtually imperceptible.
Curcumin is poorly absorbed by the small intestine, so it is not very beneficial. According to Nelson, if there is anything useful in turmeric, it is not curcumin. In addition, turmeric is prepared as part of a dish that is heated with other products, so its chemical components change. There is a lot of turmeric – it is not harmful, says Nelson, but he does not recommend using it as a medicine.
Chillies and turmeric seem to have been studied extensively, but most studies only compare consumption data and various health outcomes, making it impossible to understand what is cause and what is effect. Well, and the study done in the laboratory may not necessarily yield the same results in the human body. As with many other nutritional studies, it is difficult to distinguish correlation from causation. Take, for example, the 2019 Italian study linking hot pepper consumption to a reduced risk of death. It was an observational study, which means it is impossible to say for sure whether eating chili makes people live longer, or whether healthier people simply enjoy hot peppers. Or maybe something else is at work.
One of the keys to solving the puzzle, however, is exactly how hot peppers are consumed by Italians and other Mediterranean nations, emphasizes the study’s author, Maria Laura Bonacchio, an epidemiologist at the Mediterranean Institute of Neurology (Italy). “The hot chili pepper is common in Mediterranean cuisine,” she says. “It’s mostly eaten with pasta, legumes or vegetables.”
In Mediterranean countries, chili pepper is eaten with pasta and vegetables, which may be the real reason for its health benefits. This is just one example of how spices can provide indirect benefits – they are eaten with legumes and vegetables. Research has also shown that adding spices to burgers can potentially lead to the formation of fewer free radicals in the body, making the meat less carcinogenic. However, other scientists suggest that these health benefits may simply be due to the preservative properties of spices: after all, adding spices to meat is a well-known way to keep it fresh for longer. In any case, it makes the food less harmful to us.
Many researchers believe that the benefits of consuming spices depend on what we eat them with. For example, they are often used as a substitute for salt. Spices make food tastier and more flavorful and can be a healthier alternative to salt.
Spices are often used instead of salt, which has its advantages. In addition, we often add spices to vegetable dishes – and eating vegetables is definitely beneficial. In general, although “golden latte” will not harm you, vegetables seasoned with spices will be more beneficial to your health. And, of course, we should not rely on spices to protect us from disease or to cure us.
You can read the original article on the BBC Future website.