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Source URL: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200406-are-there-benefits-to-eating-turmeric-and-other-spices

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Are there health benefits to eating turmeric and other spices?

Are there health benefits to eating turmeric and other spices?

Chilli, turmeric and other spices are often claimed to have health benefitskorzyści zdrowotne or even the ability to "boostwzmocnić our immune system". But can spices really add any health benefitskorzyści zdrowotne to our food, or help us ward offodpierać illness?

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Spices have been a part of our diets for thousands of years – it's second naturedruga natura to sprinkle our chips with pepper, sip onsączyć ginger tea and add chillies to our meals. But recently, some spices have been unofficially promoted from everyday culinarykulinarny staples to all-healing superfoodswszechleczące superfoods.

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But do spices really add any health benefitskorzyści to our food, or help us ward offodpierać illness? And can any of them actually do us harm?

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One of the most well known and widely usedszeroko stosowane spices are chilli peppers. Many studies have examined their potential effects on our health – but have found both beneficial and adverseniekorzystne results.

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Capsaicinkapsaicyna is the main active ingredientskładnik aktywny in chillies. When we eat chillies, capsaicinkapsaicyna molecules interact with the temperature receptorsreceptory in our bodies, sending signals to the brainwysyłanie sygnałów do mózgu to create the feeling of heat.

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Some studies point towskazywać na the idea that capsaicinkapsaicyna may help you live longerpomóc ci żyć dłużej.

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"The major findings were that higher intake of spicy foods is related to a lower risk of mortalityśmiertelność, particularly deaths due to cancer, heart disease, and respiratoryoddechowy diseases," says researcher Lu Qi, professor of nutrition at Harvard's school of public health.

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This does not, however, mean that starting to eat large quantitiesilości of chilli peppers will protect your health – or protect you from respiratoryoddechowy illness – in the short-termna krótką metę.

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It's important to remember that the China study followed people for a medianmediana time of seven years each. So even if chillies had a protective effectefekt ochronny on participants’ health, rather than the people who ate chillies happening to be healthier to begin with, the effect likely built upnarastać over time – not within weeks or months.

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Qi tried to separatepróbował oddzielić the effects of chilli consumption from everything else by controllingkontrolowanie for age, sex, education level, marital status, diet and lifestyle factors including alcohol intake, smoking and physical activity. He says the lower risk of diseaseniższe ryzyko choroby relating to eating chillies may be partly due to capsaicinkapsaicyna.

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"Certain ingredients in spicy foods, such as capsaicinkapsaicyna, have been found to improve metabolicmetaboliczny status, such as lipid profilesprofil lipidowy" – cholesterol in the blood – "and inflammationzapalenie, and these may partly account forwyjaśniać the observations in our study", says Qi.

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The burning sensationpalące uczucie that comes with eating chillies has long fascinatedzafascynowani scientists. It also gives us some insight into why chillies may be associated with cognitivepoznawczy decline: the sensation is the result of plants evolving to protect themselves against diseases and pests.

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"While some plants have evolvedewoluowały to become bitter or spicy to predatorsdrapieżniki, it’s better if the plant can make themselves toxictoksyczne, too," says Kirsten Brandt, senior lecturer at the Human Nutrition Research Centre Population Health Sciences Institute at the UK's Newcastle University.

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But these compoundszwiązki chemiczne generally have a smaller effect on us than on insects. "A little bit of toxin can be good, such as caffeine, which speeds upprzyspiesza our metabolismmetabolizm so we feel more awake," she says. "However, a lot of it is bad for you."

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The compoundszwiązki chemiczne that give spices their flavoursmak aren’t harmful to humans, argues Duane Mellor, dieticiandietetyk and senior teaching fellow at Aston Medical School in Birmingham, UK.

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"While a lot of the pigments and bitter flavoursgorzki smaki we tend to enjoy in foods are there to protect plants being eaten by insects, we've grown accustomed toprzyzwyczailiśmy się do these flavours’ toxicitytoksyczność levels – we can deal withradzić sobie z a lot of these plant compoundszwiązki roślinne, including tanninsgarbniki in black tea, whereas some species can't."

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On the other hand, even if a compoundzwiązek chemiczny within a certain spice may have beneficial effects, we normally don’t consume enough of it to make any differencezrobić jakąkolwiek różnicę.

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Robustsolidny evidence for turmeric being beneficial, however, is lacking.

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In the Western world, this increasing interestrosnące zainteresowanie in spices including turmeric as an alternativealternatywny medicine was last seen in the Middle Ages, when spices were thought to have healing propertieswłaściwości, says Paul Freedman, professor of history at Yale University.

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"Spices were used to balancerównowaga the properties of foodwłaściwości jedzenia. People thought of food as having hot, cold, moist and dry qualitiescechy, and they needed balancerównowaga," says Freedman. Fish was considered cold and wetuważany za zimny i wilgotny, for example, while spices were hot and dry.

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In many Western countries, where such ideas are much newer, "this idea of balance is shared with modern new-age medicinenowoczesna medycyna nowej ery", Freedman says. "Our modern fascinationfascynacja with spices brings us closer to a medieval outlookspojrzenie than 50 years ago – when there was a wall betweenistniała przepaść między modern medicine like antibiotics and superstitious medicine of the past that didn’t work."

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As part of her jobw ramach swojej pracy, Kathryn Nelson, former research assistant professor at the University of Minnesota's Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development, looked at moleculescząsteczki to see if they could be a compound for new drugs. She decided to study curcuminkurkumina after she kept coming acrossnatrafiać na the health claims associated with it.

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"Researchers are able to exertwywierać effects in cells grown in test tubeshodowane w probówkach by adding compounds to it and seeing what happens to the cells," she says.

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There could be something about turmeric that's beneficial, but it’s not curcuminkurkumina, she says. Plus, if turmeric is cooked as part of a meal, she says, it's added alongside other foods, and heated uppodgrzany, so its chemical componentsskładniki chemiczne change.

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"There might be something else in turmeric worth looking atprzyjrzeć się, but not curcuminkurkumina, and it might not be one thing. It might need to be chemically modifiedchemicznie zmodyfikowany or added to something to be beneficial."

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She says consuming lots of turmeric isn't harmful, but she wouldn't advise using it as self-medicationsamoleczenie.

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Chilli and turmeric have been widely studied, but most trialsbadania kliniczne have only compared data on consumption and different health outcomeswyniki, which doesn't separate cause from effectoddzielić przyczynę od skutku. And research done in laboratories doesn’t necessarily translate toprzekładać się na the human body.

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And as is true for so many nutritional studies, it's difficult to tease outwyodrębnić correlationkorelacja versus causationprzyczynowość.

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Take the 2019 Italian study finding that there was a lower risk of deathniższe ryzyko śmierci associated with chilli consumption. It was observationalobserwacyjny, so it's impossible to know whether eating chilli made people live longer, whether already healthy people tend to consume more chilli, or if something else is at workdziałać.

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One clue could, however, lie intkwić w how chillies are consumed by Italians and other Mediterranean cultureskultury śródziemnomorskie, says the study's author Marialaura Bonaccio, epidemiologistepidemiolog at Italy's Mediterranean Neurological Institute.

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"Chilli is common in Mediterranean countrieskraje śródziemnomorskie," says Bonaccio. "It's mostly eaten with pasta and legumesrośliny strączkowe or vegetables."

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This is just one example ofjeden przykład how spices could be indirectlypośrednio beneficial – they're eaten with legumes and vegetables.

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"Putting spices into meat is a well-known techniquedobrze znana technika to preservekonserwować meat," he says. "The benefits of spices, therefore, may be more food preservation, rather than them having direct benefits to us. But either way, we could benefit as it still makes the food less harmful to us."

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We also tend to eat chillies with vegetables – which of course benefitskorzyści our health, too.

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So while golden lattes won't do us any harm, we might be better offlepiej na tym wyjść having some vegetables seasonedprzyprawione with a sprinkling of spicesszczypta przypraw. And we certainly shouldn't rely on them as a way to ward offodpierać – or to fight – any kind of illness.

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* This article was originally publishedopublikowany on 6 April 2020. It was updatedzaktualizowany on 7 November 2024 to include recent research.

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