Effects of spicy food consumption on overweight/obesity, hypertension and blood lipids in China: a meta‐analysis of cross-sectional studies

Abstract

Background and objectives Effect of spicy food consumption on health has attracted widespread attention in recent years. However, the relationships between spicy food intake and overweight/obesity, hypertension and blood lipid levels remain unclear. A meta-analysis of available observational studies was conducted in order to explore the associations. Methods PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of science databases were searched for studies published up to 10 August 2021 without language limitation. The fixed and random effects models were selected to aggregate the effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) in this study. Results A total of nine observational studies involving 189,817 participants were included. Results from this meta-analysis showed that the highest category of spicy food intake significantly increased the risk of overweight/obesity (pooled Odds Ratio (OR): 1.17; 95% CI: 1.07, 1.28; P < 0.001), compared with the lowest category of spicy food intake. Conversely, a remarkable negative association was observed between the highest category of spicy food intake and hypertension (pooled OR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.81, 0.93; P = 0.307). In addition, the highest category of spicy food intake increased the level of low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (weighted mean difference (WMD): 0.21; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.39; P = 0.040), and reduced high density lipoprotein cholesterol level (HDL-C) (WMD: -0.06; 95% CI: -0.10, -0.02; P = 0.268) concentrations, but it was not related to total cholesterol (TC) (WMD: 0.09; 95% CI: -0.08, 0.26; P = 0.071) and triglyceride (TG) (WMD: -0.08; 95% CI: -0.19, 0.02; P = 0.333)] levels. Conclusion Spicy food intake may have a beneficial effect on hypertension, but adversely affect overweight/obesity, as well as blood lipid levels. However, the results should be interpreted cautiously because the present analyses were based on only observational studies and not intervention studies. More large and high-quality studies in different populations will be needed to verify these associations in the future.

Dietary Intake of Capsaicin and Its Association with Markers of Body Adiposity and Fatty Liver in a Mexican Adult Population of Tijuana

“…In this research, a positive association was evidenced: the greater the consumption of CAP, the higher the level of adiposity. This is consistent with the results of previous epidemiological studies showing positive associations between chili intake and obesity measurements based on BMI, HC and BAI [19][20][21][22][23][24]. However, an important point of discussion is that the previous studies analyzing the associations between CAP intake and obesity status focused on the consumption levels of…”

“…Other studies on Asians similarly evidenced positive associations between a spicy taste and the consumption of chilies and spicy foods with general and abdominal obesity levels [21][22][23]. Indeed, a meta-analysis of the available cross-sectional studies revealed an increased risk of being overweight/obese in individuals in the largest category of spicy food intake compared to those in the smallest category [24]. Thus, further studies are needed to elucidate the association of CAP with body adiposity and metabolic features, taking into account the characteristics of the study populations as well as the cultural and related environmental factors of each region.…”

Updates in the management of hypertension

“…Spices were also found to have a lowering effect of BP including capsaicin, pepper, chilli, ginger, garlic, onion, fenugreek, turmeric, which are variously used in different culture foods. This effect could be attributed to the role of transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) activation 49 . Although, studies on this receptor have not been validated in humans yet 50 .…”

Impact of TRPV1 on Pathogenesis and Therapy of Neurodegenerative Diseases

“…Therefore, the impact of spicy food consumption on health also has received widespread attention in recent years. Epidemiological studies have shown that the intake of spicy foods may have beneficial effects on hypertension, gastric ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease and gastrointestinal cancer [ 116 , 117 , 118 ]. And it is negatively correlated with the risk of death caused by cancer, ischemic heart disease and respiratory diseases [ 119 ].…”