Could chili peppers save your heart?

Chili peppers linked to lower heart and stroke risks


Eating spicy foods can be good for your health. I don’t know about you, but I find natural health tips especially valuable. There is a new study showing hot peppers just could help you live longer by preserving heart health.

Hot peppers seem to keep heart attack stroke  at bay

What researchers found is a lower chance of heart attack and stroke among people who enjoy hot peppers.

Interestingly, the study also comes on the heels of a recent study showing Indian long-pepper - a 3000 year old spice used in Ayurvedic medicine kills cancer cells.

The study was published recently in PLoS ONE shows an association between a longer life and eating chili peppers.

Hot peppers contain the ingredient capsaicin that is found in some over the counter pain remedies and muscle rubs and patches and have been well studied.

The study

The finding is observational and certainly no guarantee that you’ll live longer if you enjoy hot peppers, but it’s still worth noting. It also supports previous studies about the health benefits of chili peppers that are hypothesized to quell inflammation in the body.

Researchers came to their conclusion using information from  the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) III study that included 16,000 Americans

Participants in the study eating more peppers tended to be younger males who smoke, drank alcohol, ate more meat and vegetables, married and Mexican-American compared to their study counterparts who did not eat chili peppers.

Investigators followed the study participants for an average of 18.9 years noting how many people died and from what cause.

Those who enjoyed peppers had a 13 percent lower risk of having died - primarily from stroke and heart attack. HDL, or good cholesterol that is supposed to prevent heart attack were also generally lower, adding to the mystery of why the association was found.

The researchers say peppers might come from a number of factors that go back to capsaicin that include altered gut bacteria from the peppers that is increasingly found to impact overall health or
improved blood flow brought about by capsaicin.

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