
Hot chillies might be good for us - sjcsjc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39217603
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ianai
Might be? I know they are. For one, they make healthy but boring food taste
great without adding fat, sodium, or simple sugars.

~~~
simcop2387
Since moving away from the south east where my seasonal allergies were
terrible I've actually used hot chillies instead of allergy meds. My symptoms
are mild enough that the flushing of all the mucus is enough to keep them at
bay for a week or so. It's been wonderful for me since every allergy or
antihistamine puts me to sleep so it was difficult to function if I had to
take them.

~~~
jbpetersen
Any advice for using this tactic without ending up with ulcers from an overly
heat-tolerant palette?

I used to eat some pretty spicy stuff to open my sinuses up but it stopped
working for that without going to gut-wrenching levels of heat.

~~~
vram22
>Any advice for using this tactic without ending up with ulcers from an overly
heat-tolerant palette?

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor - consult your doctor before trying this.

That said, you can consider jala neti. Google the term. Also see:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_(Hatha_Yoga)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_\(Hatha_Yoga\))

It is a yoga technique for cleansing the nasal passages with luke-warm mildly
salted water (1/2 teaspoon salt to a 200 ml glass of water is what I use,
stirred well). I have been doing it daily for some years, and I find it helps
clear my nasal passages. I had first read about it, long ago, in a book by the
Yoga Institute, Santa Cruz, Mumbai, and read (in that book, which seemed
somewhat scientific and cited many studies for its various claims) that a
study was done in UK where a group did it in winter, another control group did
not, and the first group had much less or no colds that winter. Thousands of
Indians and other have been doing it for years. But - that was just one
example, there could be other studies - pro or con, of course. Caveat user.

You should consult your doctor before trying neti, in case you have any
complications that may make it less than helpful.

Also, I've found that sometimes a little of the salt water can sometimes
trickle out of my nose up to a couple of hours after doing jala neti. So watch
out and keep your head a bit away from any device or PC for a while. Tilting
the head along various axes helps drain out any remnant water, I've found.

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mason240
The study this entire puff peice is written around:

>The Association of Hot Red Chili Pepper Consumption and Mortality: A Large
Population-Based Cohort Study

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169876)

>In this large prospective study, we observed an inverse relationship between
hot red chili pepper consumption and all-cause mortality, after adjusting for
potential confounders. Adults who consumed hot red chili peppers had a 13%
lower hazard of death, compared to those who did not.

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725686
There are chillies (chiles in spanish), that are hot as hell but tasteless.
There are others that are less hot but with great flavor. I personally
recommend you try Chipotle and Pasilla. You can buy canned chipotles, put them
in the blender and you've got yourself a fantastic salsa for your quesadillas
that will last forever in the fridge.

By the way, a great way to relieve the "pain" is by eating bread (use your
tongue to move the bread around before swallowing).

~~~
rjbwork
I prefer the really pungent chilis. Ghost pepper and habenero and scotch
bonnet are all very hot, yes, but they have these wonderful sweet fruity
tastes that are just delightful.

I don't know about bread, and don't quite see why that might work. From my
understanding, something like milk is great because it has a good amount of
fat in it. As capsaicin is a fat/oil soluble molecule, it helps wash it away
by dissolving it, and as a liquid, gives a huge surface area for contact with
the capsaicin.

~~~
LoSboccacc
habanero is my personal fav. it's tasty, it has a wonderful smell and it isn't
too hot - as in, you get a decent amount of taste without having to overdo the
hotnsess.

~~~
rjbwork
Scotch Bonnets are mine - I absolutely love Jamaican food, where it's very
prevalent.

Interestingly enough, they are the same species, just different local
cultivars.

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dominotw
Why do cultures from hot climates like India and mexico eat spicy food? I've
heard vague explanations like it 'cools body down', would be interesting to
see any research done on this.

~~~
bogomipz
By spicy I think you are referring to "hot spicy" as in peppers as opposed to
cardamon, clove, cumin and all those wonderful spices. "hot spciy" i.e heat
form peppers is really Southern Indian food, even though the rest of India
gets plenty hot temperatures as well.

This was a a result of the Portuguese brining it to India from the new
world(along with Christianity from Europe.) These were two of my first
impressions of traveling from North to South in India - "hmm the food just got
wonderfully hot and wow there are all of sudden a lot of churches")

I've heard these pseudo-scientific explanations like "makes you feel cooler"
as well but I think it's really just an acquired palate over time in areas
that the Portuguese were trading in.

That being said I have a folk remedy for when I feel like I;m getting sick
with a fever which is to order Thai curry and ask for it 'Thai hot." This
usually gets a laugh and a request for confirmation. It appears to me to help
the fever break. Placebo or not, I have no idea.

~~~
jonjos
> the food just got wonderfully hot and wow there are all of sudden a lot of
> churches

implies that you might have visited the green south Indian state called
Kerala. Kerala is also called the Spice Garden of India (or maybe the world).

Happy to shamelessly and contextually plug my native land Kerala Tourism's
website here if anyone wants to visit the land of spices.

[https://www.keralatourism.org/kerala-article/spices-
kerala/5...](https://www.keralatourism.org/kerala-article/spices-kerala/527)

More about Kerala here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala)

~~~
cholantesh
This is fortuitous as I'm planning a trip back to the motherland. I'm Tamil by
birth, but my mom's side of the family traces their ancestry to Kerala, and a
few generations back they were based in Palakkad. Any recommendations for a
temple-lite itinerary?

~~~
bogomipz
I would not miss Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. You could look
at the Gopurams alone for hours.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meenakshi_Amman_Temple](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meenakshi_Amman_Temple)

It's just beautiful. I don't think pictures do it justice. It's an experience.
That would also put you in striking distance of Kerala or it could be made as
an easy side trip from Kerala.

Edit: I didn't read closely enough that you said temple-lite. But I think its
still a good suggestion :)

~~~
cholantesh
I'm definitely a fan of the Madurai Meenakshi temple, and the Kapaleeshwarar
Temple in Chennai (partly because it's so close to my grandparents' home). But
at this point, most of my trips back home have been spent in temples, and I'd
like to have a more, shall we say 'secular' experience. :)

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jlebrech
"From an evolutionary perspective the plant would much rather have its seeds
dispersed far and wide by birds." I hate this logic concerning evolution, the
change happened and it was of benefit to the plant so the gene stayed.

~~~
ideonexus
Richard Dawkins constantly reiterates this point in his book _The Selfish
Gene_ , constantly reminding us that genes aren't actually "selfish" and don't
actually have wants, but these anthropomorphisms are useful shortcuts for
communicating the subject-matter.

~~~
jlebrech
it's a wrong way of explaining because if you use that explanation with a
creationist it strengthens their belief (i.e how can a gene has needs, we know
god did it).

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rajesht
Correlation is not causation! the only data it has is group of people who ate
chilliest died 13%

~~~
placeybordeaux
Yeah the uncoerced choice to eat chillis is a major potential confounding
factor. It's really not for everyone and frequently seems to have something to
say about the environment you were brought up in & the type of food you
normally eat.

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herbst
Since i reside in south east asia i learned that a chilly filled breakfast
starts me better in the day than any coffee ever could. After a meal that
makes me cry i am happy and energetic and ready to work

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foobarge
"So why might eating chillies be good for you? The researchers speculate that
it could be that capsaicin is helping increase blood flow, or even altering
the mix of your gut bacteria in a helpful direction."

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malkia
Coincidentally I love chilly peppers, on my first day at work, there was Ghost
Pepper, and tonight we are going to Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert with my
wife.

Time to go to the kitchen before it closes, and put something chilli.

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searealist
Short people live longer than tall people. Short people eat more spicy food.

Average male Indian height: 5'5"

Average male Thai height: 5'7"

Average male Mexican height: 5'6"

etc...

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laborat
Or people who lack variation in their diet (which contributes to health) skip
the chilis too.

------
known
In rural India there is a belief that eating chillies will prevent Cancer;

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Neliquat
Correlation (people who ate peppers died less), in no way implies their stated
causation ( eating peppers makes you live longer ). Consider how many old
people vs young people like spicy food and I think you get my point. I really
just wanted some damned confirmation bias, not shitty reporting.

~~~
ctdonath
Correlation _implies_ causation, which is why scientists proceed from there in
search of _proof_. You're trying to contend it doesn't _prove_ , and thereby
imply the whole of the research involved is wrong.

Incoherent accusations, poor punctuation, and profanity _correlate_ with
incompetence. They don't prove you are, but you certainly might be.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Correlation implies causation

Strictly logically speaking, it does not.

Probabilistically, it does; or, IOW, correlation correlates with causation.

~~~
fragsworth
Actually, probabilistically, it does not. There's effectively infinite
correlations you can come up with that have no cause and effect

~~~
dragonwriter
When I say there is a probabilistic implication, I mean, basically:

P (X causes Y|X correlates with Y) > P (X causes Y) > P (X causes Y|X doesn't
correlate with Y)

~~~
fragsworth
Yeah, I don't think that conjecture holds (or even makes sense?), if you're
talking about the set of all possible correlations.

If you take the limits, you end up getting 0 > 0 > 0.

