In the wake of the Ig Nobel Prize-winning studies about whether eating Italian pizza in Italy might lengthen life, comes a new study about Italians who eat chili peppers:
“Chili Pepper Consumption and Mortality in Italian Adults,” Marialaura Bonaccio, Augusto Di Castelnuovo, Simona Costanzo, Emilia Ruggiero, Amalia De Curtis, Mariarosaria Persichillo, Claudio Tabolacci, Francesco Facchiano, Chiara Cerletti, Maria Benedetta Donati, Giovanni de Gaetano, Licia Iacoviello and on behalf of the Moli-sani Study Investigators, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, vol. 74, no. 25, December 2019.
The authors explain:
This study sought to examine the association between chili pepper consumption and risk of death in a large sample of the adult Italian general population, and to account for biological mediators of the association.
Conclusions In a large adult Mediterranean population, regular consumption of chili pepper is associated with a lower risk of total and CVD [cardiovascular disease] death independent of CVD risk factors or adherence to a Mediterranean diet. Known biomarkers of CVD risk only marginally mediate the association of chili pepper intake with mortality.
(Thanks to Thomas Michel for bringing this to our attention.)