Study finds association between eating hot peppers and decreased mortality

I&#x27;ll posit an additional theory—that people with gastrointestinal problems don&#x27;t eat spicy food because it causes discomfort.<p>But the other part that the article mentions—eating more vegetables and meats—well, most of the spicy foods I can think of are basically vegetables + meat in a spicy sauce.

I look forward to the inevitable study that finds an association between spicy foods and heart disease, or colon cancer, or spontaneous brain tumors, or Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia, and recommends reducing intake of aforementioned spicy foods for all humans aged 10-75.

Man, I should live forever then. I love hot peppers. Well, OK, I usually use bottled pepper sauces of various sorts, not whole, fresh peppers themselves. So maybe that doesn&#x27;t work. But if it&#x27;s just the capsaicin, then I get plenty of it... jalapeno pepper, cayenne pepper, chipotle pepper, scotch bonnet pepper, habanero pepper, ghost pepper (naga jolokia), trinidad scorpion pepper, carolina reaper peppers... I love &#x27;em all.<p>Thanks HN, now you have me wanting to cook a big pot of chili that I can pepper up to ludicrous levels of hotness.

I am not a trained statistician, so can someone help me understand why this is even publishable?<p>I read the abstract and found they quote their key statistic at P = 0.01. The &quot;NHANES III&quot; study that their data comes from has over 1000 variables. Can&#x27;t you just cherry-pick a handful of &quot;significant&quot; variables at the P = 0.01 level, when there are 1000 variables to choose from?

Why do people look for correlations any more? Aren&#x27;t scientists painfully aware of confirmation bias[1] and spurious correlation[2] yet?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Confirmation_bias" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Confirmation_bias</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tylervigen.com&#x2F;spurious-correlations" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tylervigen.com&#x2F;spurious-correlations</a>

Cultures that eat red peppers tend to have shorter people. Shorter people tend to live longer.

Pickles, on the other hand, will kill you. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jir.com&#x2F;pickles.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jir.com&#x2F;pickles.html</a>

some kind of correlation effect, perhaps?<p>my speculation: eating more chili peppers is associated (positively) with a more varied and nutritious diet

Nice! Given the level of capsicin contained in my blood, I can then declare I&#x27;m immortal:)<p>Seriously, this is something I heard many many years ago. Don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s just a popular belief or something proved scientifically but I had many people tell me that eating hot pepper is very good for health. Roughly the same for garlic.

I wonder if this is an example of hormesis? <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gettingstronger.org&#x2F;hormesis&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gettingstronger.org&#x2F;hormesis&#x2F;</a><p>I&#x27;ll use this opportunity to recommend all of Dr. Rhonda Patrick&#x27;s appearances on the Joe Rogan podcast. She discusses the science behind many nutrition and health topics, including hormesis: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=rhonda+patrick+jre" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=rhonda+patrick+jre</a>

It&#x27;s not <i>that</i> huge of a win, roughly 9-10 of that extra 13 percent is spent in the bathroom. Study finds relaxing on the throne decreases mortality?

Yeah.... let&#x27;s see it replicated first.

It&#x27;s probably a trivial matter, but is anyone else confused as to why the color red is cited throughout the article? Presumably the color of the peppers has nothing to do with the findings. Right?

I love hot stuff, I only avoid it because I hate having a runny nose. Is that something that goes away with consistent exposure?

Correlation is not causation.

Pretty sure the human mortality rate is still 100℅.

So if I eat enough peppers I&#x27;ll live forever?

30 years from now: eating too many hot peppers gives you stomach cancer.

vitamin C?

Empirical observation: I find women who love spicy food usually have better, smoother skins.

Corrolation is not Causation. It is more likely that people who are not robust, and therefore in gross numbers more likely to die earlier, are smart enough not to destroy themselves by eating spicy foods.

Will I live longer, or not? Are hot peppers good for my health, or not? Is the mechanism known, or not? Are they recommended by experts, or not?