Spicy Food

Chinese cuisine has a lot of [blazingly:astonishing] spicy dishes, like mapo tofu and hot pot. And, of course, there's the ever-present chili oil. "I like spicy food myself." Lu Qi, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Almost every day, I eat spicy food." That spicy tradition served as [scientific:economic] inspiration for Qi: he and colleagues performed a study which found that a daily dose of chilies might actually be a boon to your health.The researchers enrolled [nearly:yearly] half a million Chinese volunteers, aged 30 to 79. They quizzed them on their affinity for fiery foods, and followed each study subject for an average of seven years. During that time, more than 20,000 of the [subjects:objects] died. But after controlling for factors like smoking history and income, the scientists found that the risk of death was 10 percent lower in those who ate [spicy:hot] food a couple times a week, compared with those who abstained. And daily chili eaters, like Lu, had a 14 percent lower risk of dying.