Spicy foods add an incredible amount of flavour to food. As ethnic foods become abundant, chili and spicy food is increasingly popular. The good news is that adding spice to our food has a range of benefits for our health and wellbeing.Chilies have long been used in traditional medicine, probably first by the Aztecs. In Russia, a drink called Nastoyka (made from chillies soaked in vodka) has also been taken as a healing remedy.
Reduced Cancer Death Rate
Scientists have proven that capsaicin, which is responsible for the burning sensation when we eat chillies, can kill cancer cells, indicating that people could at least prevent the onset of cancer by eating spicy food. This is because it is a natural antioxidant, meaning that it defends against disease causing toxins.
According to the World Health Organization, countries where diets are traditionally high in capsaicin have significantly lower cancer death rates for men and women than in countries where little spicy food is consumed. Dr Timothy Bates who made the discovery, says that “This is incredibly exciting and may explain why people living in countries like Mexico and India, who traditionally eat a diet which is very spicy, tend to have lower incidences of many cancers that are prevalent in the western world.”
According to Bates, capsaicin attacks the power house of the tumour, thus killing the cancerous tumour cells and reducing tumour growth without harming the surrounding healthy cells. Capsaicin has been found to inhibit the growth of cancer cells in laboratory studies.
Prevents Dangerous Blood Clots
As well as preventing cancer, researchers have also noticed that people who consume large amounts of chili peppers experienced a lower incidence of thrombo-embolism, or potentially dangerous blood clots.
Scientists have studied the medical records of countries where spicy foods are regularly consumed, and found that people who eat a diet high in chillies experience a much lower incidence of blood clotting diseases. It has now been scientifically proven that capsicum is able to break down blood clots.
