B490 : Food Nutrition : Assessment Answer

Answer: 

Evaluation Report

Media headline for the given journal article 

“The ‘Hot’ spicy food benefits associated with longer lived slimmer human health”

Overview of the journal article

The article is depicting that chili consumption can be healthy for living longer and healthy human-life as it is associated with the energy level balancing in daily life. The results of this survey study are showing that high chili intake is directly proportional to the obesity prevention and longer life. It is the first study which is relating chili intake and obesity using real data of population. This study mentioning that energy intake varies with chili intake, as consumers of chili experienced high energy when they increased their energy intake from 20grams per day to above 50grams per day (Shi, et al., 2017).

How chili consumption is helping in living Longer Life

Chili contains a bioactive herb compound, which is called capsaicin, which is the responsible element for its spicy and hot quality. Capsaicin is rigorous in the seeds part and also in the white innermost long membrane; the higher capsaicin it will contain, the peppery the pepper will be (Walton, 2017). Whether it is eaten fresh, powdered, or dried, in any form chili pepper is able to put fire on tongue and even a tear in person’s eye. Apart from capsaicin chili contains other beneficial herbal components like Lutein, Capsanthin, Volaxanthin, Ferulic acid, and Sinapic acid. Other health benefits can be explained as follows:

• Helps Fight Inflammation 
• Boosts Immunity
• Protects Your Heart
• Helps Reduce Insulin Levels
• Prevents Sinusitis and Relieves Congestion (McQuaid, 2015)

Other usage of Chili: Chili is not only for food and health uses but it is very much useful for self-defence. A component known as Oleoresin capsicum (referred as OC), take out from red chili peppers, is an active element of pepper spray. Pepper spray is used for safety and security purposes in emergency conditions and life threating situations. OC is a fiery agent that usually makes the mucous tissues of the upper respiratory and eyes swell. Moreover, Pepper spray creates breathing problems, liquid in nose, sharp pain in the eyes and momentary blindness. The capsaicin component of chili can be used to prevent insects and animals, for that reason it is more often utilized as a natural insecticide in gardens.  It is to be noted that few plants are very subtle to chili powder sprays, so first we require testing on few leaves of the plant then we can use it (McQuaid, 2015).

Research Study type

The China Health and Nutrition Survey were conducted among adults of 20–75 years age between the years 1991 and 2011. A three-day food recorded dietary datasets were collected by home visits in 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2011.

After data collection, Cox regression analysis was used in the research study and Overweight or obesity was defined as body mass index 25 kg m⁻² (Shi, et al., 2017).

Cox regression analysis is a methodology for investigating the effect of various variables over a time period when specified event proceeds to happen. Although, the methodology will not undertake any specific survival model but it is not really non-parametric. You cannot use Cox regression without proper direction of a Theoretician. The Cox regression prolongs persistence analysis approaches to measure simultaneously the outcome of numerous risk aspects on survival period (NCSS Statistical Software, 2017).

This study is giving inverse relationship in between obesity and chili consumption, still there are some studies results contradicting above results which says high chili consumption may cause adiposity and other health problems. Thus, more research is needed to explore the methods of study and get more clarified results.

Publication and authors details

The article was published on 31^st March, 2017 in the international Journal of obesity (2017) by Macmillan Publishers Limited, which is a part of Springer Nature and full of text original article is available at https://www.nature.com/ijo/.

Authors are:

• M Riley

Commonwealth Scientific and industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia

• Z Shi, A W Taylor & A Page (Nature, 2018)

School of Medicine, University of Adelaide, Australia

‘Z Shi’ contribution: he contributed in the conception, interpretation and analysis of data; report drafting, and provided approved final version for publishing.

‘A W Taylor, M Riley and A Page’ contribution: they commented on the report, he did data analysis and interpretation and also revised the manuscript. Their contribution was also in approving the final version for publication.

International Journal of Obesity: It is a Multi-disciplinary forum for versatile research studies as: physiology, basic clinical studies in biochemistry, genetics, and nutrition. This journal is having very high impact factor of 5.151 as of year 2017. Rank of the journal according to the Journal Citation Reports 2017, is as follows:

• 23/143 Endocrinology & Metabolism
• 10/81 Nutrition & Dietetics (Nature, 2018)

Conflict in interests: The authors are showing no conflicts of interest (Shi, et al., 2017).

Research Results

Basic result

Chilli intake is inversely associated with the risk of becoming overweight or obese in Chinese adults (Shi, et al., 2017). Thus, higher chili intake link with mortality will also be inverse graph and will result in longer lived human health.

Detailed result

In above research study, the authors measured absolute incidence rate of obesity, which resulted in 26.4, 22.3, 24.4 and 20.5 per 1000 person-years among the people who had no chili intake and it was 1-20, 20.1-50, 50.1 g per day respectively. Therefore, chili intake was inversely proportional to the incidence of adiposity in Chinese adults. After varying the values of gender, age, energy intake, smoking, physical activity and alcohol drinking, those who were having cumulative chili intake of 0, 1-20, 20.1-50 and 50.1 g per day had a danger obesity ratio of 1.00, 0.81, 0.77, 0.73 respectively. After measuring these obesity ratios among the Chinese adult population, it is evident from the study that there is no relationship amid chili intake and income, gender, education, residence in proportion to the risk of adiposity (Shi, et al., 2017).

Study population

Adults aged 20–75 years of Chinese adult population were studied through survey and Cox regression. They measured absolute incidence rate of obesity per 1000 persons, among both groups who consumed no chili over that period and who took average chili intake.

Author’s interpretation justification

Author’s interpretation is not fully justified in above study. As the inverse link amid chilli consumption and obesity in this study is apparent among most of the animals and minor sample human studies yet it is not relating with the discoveries of The China Kadoorie Biobank study (referred as CKB study). As the CKB study shows that the power and regularity of highly spiced food consumption is directly proportional to obesity (Shi, et al., 2017).

Conclusion:

In conclusion of the research study, high chilli consumption is reversely related with the incident of obesity among Chinese population of adults. In order to decrease the occurrence of overweight and adiposity within China encouraging population for regular and greater chilli consumption will be a novel idea (DoveMed, 2018).  Strength of the study is that, as most of the public already consume chilli very much, hence these results will be helpful in forming an economic as well as simple strategy to reduce adiposity in china. Limitation is conversely, these results are not clarified to larger extent as there still exist some research studies in china, which strongly contradicts these results, thus more exploration is required.

Moreover, existing facts and evidences from animal researches and small level medical experiments suggest that high chilli intake might reduce energy consumption, rise energy outlay and improve fat oxidation process (Whiting, et al., 2012). Moreover, obesity causes numerous dangerous diseases like High blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea and some cancers. These diseases will reduce age and increase mortality rate, hence chili consumption is directly related to decrease mortality rate in adults (The Guardian, 2016). Thus, chilli consumption overall might have the capability to help in obesity prevention as well as longer healthy life in humans (Singletary, 2011). 

References:

DoveMed, 2018. 7 Health Benefits Of Chili Pepper. [Online]
Available at: https://www.dovemed.com/healthy-living/natural-health/7-health-benefits-of-chili-pepper/
[Accessed 26 09 2018].

McQuaid, J., 2015. Chili Peppers May Provide A Key To Understanding Overeating And Obesity. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmcquaid/2015/09/06/chili-peppers-may-provide-a-key-to-understanding-overeating-and-obesity/#4d1dbb7745ce
[Accessed 29 09 2018].

Nature, 2018. About the Journal. [Online]
Available at: https://www.nature.com/ijo/about
[Accessed 26 09 2018].

NCSS Statistical Software, 2017. Cox Regression. [Online]
Available at: https://ncss-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/themes/ncss/pdf/Procedures/NCSS/Cox_Regression.pdf
[Accessed 26 09 2018].

Shi, Z., Riley, M., Taylor, A. & Page, A., 2017. Chilli consumption and the incidence of overweight and obesity in a Chinese adult population. International Journal of Obesity, 41(7), p. 1074.

Singletary, K., 2011. Red pepper: overview of potential health benefits. Nutrition Today, 46(1), pp. 33-47.

The Guardian, 2016. Small weight loss brings big health benefits for obese patients. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/22/small-weight-loss-brings-big-health-benefits-for-obese-patients
[Accessed 29 09 2018].

Walton, A. G., 2017. 10 Foods That Science Suggests Really Do Contribute To Long-Term Health. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/09/18/10-foods-that-science-suggests-really-do-contribute-to-long-term-health/#68e3dad6f378
[Accessed 29 09 2018].

Whiting, S., Derbyshire, E. & Tiwari, B., 2012. Capsaicinoids and capsinoids. A potential role for weight management? A systematic review of the evidence. Appetite, 59(2), pp. 341-348.