Studies say hot sauce is good for your diet

Studies say hot sauce is good for your diet

At this very moment, my partner and I are going through serious dilemma regarding our diet. We know we have to maintain our weight because there are so many factors that will impose health risks sometime later in our lives. Luckily we’ve come across some studies which couldn’t have come at a better time! If you are like us, thinking about your future, and wanting to nurture a well balanced diet, then here is some information that will deliver a boost to your health – especially to those who love hot sauce.

Medicinal advantages of chili pepper

Chilli has some medicinal advantages. It is considered to be safe and effective in treating arthritis pain, herpes-zoster pain, diabetic neuropathy, mastectomy pains, and headaches.

What do the studies say?

As unique as it may sound, science has actually provided with studies that show how hot sauce, or to be more exact, chili peppers can be beneficial for us. The studies say that chili peppers contain capsaicin, an active components of the chili plants that belong to the subfamily of capsicum, develop a change in the body. This result in a progressive development of cancer cells, and reduction in the risk of early deaths.

According to David Popovich, a nutrition expert from Massey University, New Zealand, “The bottom line is that any kind of vegetable material you consume will improve your health. But hot peppers are really beneficial for you if you can take the spice.”

In 2006, Popovich and his research team started investigating on mice to see that high doses of capsaicin successfully kills some prostate cancer cells, while leaving the healthy cells alive. In the case of human beings, they would require a large amount of such spices to keep up with the theory.

How does capsaicin work?

Scientists have yet to come up with a solid answer as to how capsaicin actually works. Scientists have scrutinised carefully on what capsaicin does once it enters the outer membrane of a cancerous cell. According to them, after infiltrating inside, it does something to change the chemical in the exterior of the cells. If enough capsaicin is added to the surface, the membranes separate.

According to Popovich, the only hypothetical answer he can come up with is that capsaicin is capable of advancing a process called apoptosis – where programmed cell death occurs in multicellular organisms. While other scientists believe that certain vegetables contain capsaicin and eating them would benefit from a slowed growth cancer cells, there is one researcher from the Research Center For Food and Development in Mexico, Jose de Jesus Ornelas-Paz, who believes that whole chili peppers are very favorable for our health if we want to fight cancer.

Capsaicin is a fat-soluble compound. Mixing it with either fat or oil will is advantageous for your health. Ornelas-Paz said, “Pungent peppers are a cocktail of bioactive compounds. Blending, cutting and cooking improve the release of these compounds from pepper tissue, increasing the amount available for absorption.”

Chilli peppers in cooking

If you are spicy food eater, then a lot of trouble has been solved for you. You can either eat chilis raw, add a couple of them during cooking so that the flavour can ooze out, or you can simply add hot sauce to your diet. Use it as a dressing, or use it as a dip. You can also use it in cooking, regardless of what you cook – chicken, lean meat, or vegetables. As for buying your hot sauce, go for the favourites: peri peri, or tabasco. There are many options too. Just visit your supermarket and see what suits you better.

In the end..

Even if there isn’t a solid answer to how capsaicin works, there is enough evidence to suggest that it will lower the risk of mortality in humans. In August of this year, a research team from Harvard University studied nearly half a million of Chinese individuals, and discovered that adults who ate spicy food six or seven times a week have a 14% lower mortality risk as compared to those who didn’t eat spicy food.

Now that the spicy lovers have good news in their support, the non-spicy lovers can try to add little bit of chillis to spice up their life!

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