Appreciated the honest read here. Observational pattern, no proof of cause, and the advice lands where it should: keep the chili if you like it, skip the capsaicin pills. More health writing should hedge this well.
David, I appreciate your thought here. I considered whether to write about this at all, because the data is so inconclusive. But I decided the WashPost column is a good example of the need for longevity literacy, ie, knowing how to read media posts on aging that often misstate the facts to monetize headlines.
Why is this called research. It doesn't take into account all the other things in these people's diets or their lifestyles. It has no control group. Really its just rather silly. The only thing I would say about spicy food is that anecdotally I find adding some hotter spicy flavors to food help to give an overall greater feeling of satisfaction after eating, which is useful for periods when i am stricter than usual about what I eat. And that is purely anecdotal.
Mark, you ask a very good question. That a licensed MD wrote about it made it a worthy subject for me, in turn, to report on, because nowadays longevity literacy is so important.
The problem with so many of these discoveries is that they start out with maybe some anecdotal observations, maybe progress to some limited methodology of collecting data then it gets distilled down to something like "eating spicy food makes you live longer." Yet the quality of the study seems to be completely lost. That of course has a lot to do with how information is reduced to click bait now. Still we have not really found much better advice than : Eat in moderation, eat mainly vegetables, good protein sources modest amount of whole grains and very limited amounts of simple carb foods. Move every day and ideally add some strength and mobility movements in consistently. Get out and be with friends and family. That seems like the only foundational guidelines that really work well with other things ranging from not useful to harmful. Oh and I stopped saying ultra processed food because there is no real defintion of what this ultra processed food is. That is another term tossed around and you won't find agreement on what it is but its great click bait.
Appreciated the honest read here. Observational pattern, no proof of cause, and the advice lands where it should: keep the chili if you like it, skip the capsaicin pills. More health writing should hedge this well.
David, I appreciate your thought here. I considered whether to write about this at all, because the data is so inconclusive. But I decided the WashPost column is a good example of the need for longevity literacy, ie, knowing how to read media posts on aging that often misstate the facts to monetize headlines.
Very nice article.
Aditya, thank you for reading.
Why is this called research. It doesn't take into account all the other things in these people's diets or their lifestyles. It has no control group. Really its just rather silly. The only thing I would say about spicy food is that anecdotally I find adding some hotter spicy flavors to food help to give an overall greater feeling of satisfaction after eating, which is useful for periods when i am stricter than usual about what I eat. And that is purely anecdotal.
Mark, you ask a very good question. That a licensed MD wrote about it made it a worthy subject for me, in turn, to report on, because nowadays longevity literacy is so important.
The problem with so many of these discoveries is that they start out with maybe some anecdotal observations, maybe progress to some limited methodology of collecting data then it gets distilled down to something like "eating spicy food makes you live longer." Yet the quality of the study seems to be completely lost. That of course has a lot to do with how information is reduced to click bait now. Still we have not really found much better advice than : Eat in moderation, eat mainly vegetables, good protein sources modest amount of whole grains and very limited amounts of simple carb foods. Move every day and ideally add some strength and mobility movements in consistently. Get out and be with friends and family. That seems like the only foundational guidelines that really work well with other things ranging from not useful to harmful. Oh and I stopped saying ultra processed food because there is no real defintion of what this ultra processed food is. That is another term tossed around and you won't find agreement on what it is but its great click bait.