Benefits of Chilli

Chillies are excellent source of Vitamin, A, B, C and E with minerals like molybdenum, manganese, folate, potassium, thiamin, and copper. Chilli contains seven times more vitamin C than orange.

Ever since its introduction to India in 1498, chillies have been included in Ayurvedic medicines and used as tonic to ward off many diseases. Chillies are good for slimming down as it burns the calorie easily. Chillies stimulate the appetite, help to clear the lungs, and stimulate digestive system.

Capsaicin : Chillies have vitamin C and Vitamin A containing beta-carotenoids which are powerful antioxidant. These antioxidants destroy free radical bodies. Usually, these radical bodies may travel in the body and cause huge amounts of damage to cells. These radical bodies could damage nerve and blood vessel in diabetes.

The antioxidants present in the chilli wipe out the radical bodies that could build up cholesterol causing major heart diseases such as atherosclerosis.

Chillies have antioxidants that can destroy cholesterol which could cause major disease like atherosclerosis and other heart diseases. Other disease like cataract and arthritis like osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. It also dilates airway of lungs which reduces asthma and wheezing.
Detoxicants : Chillies acts as detoxifiers as they removes waste products from our body and increases supply nutrients to the tissues. It also acts as gastrointestinal detoxicants helping in digestion of food.
Pain killer : Chillies stimulates the release of endorphins that are natural pain killers. It relieves pain caused due to shingles (Herpes Zoster), bursitis, diabetic neuropathy and muscle spasm in shoulders, and extremities. It also helps in relieving arthritic pains in the extremities.
Antibiotic : Chillies brings fresh blood to the site of the infection. The fresh blood fights infection. The white blood cells and leukocytes present in the fresh blood fights viruses.
Brain : Capsaicin stimulates brain to excrete endorphin and gives a sense of pleasure when ingested. This is the reason people get addicted to chilli.
Cancer : It has been noted that vitamin C, beta-carotene and folic acid found in chilli reduces the risk of colon cancer. Chillies such as red pepper have cartonoid lycopene, which prevents cancer disease.
Heart Attack : Chillies have vitamin B6 and folic acid. The vitamin B reduces high homocysteine level. High homocysteine levels have been shown to cause damage to blood vessels and are associated with a greatly increased risk of heart attack and stroke. It also converts homocysteine into other molecules which is beneficial to lower cholesterol level.
Lung disease : Chillies gives relief from nasal congestion by increasing the metabolism. It also dilates airway of lungs which reduces asthma and wheezing. It relieves chronic congestion in people who are heavy drinkers.

Cigarette smoke contains benzopyrene which destroys the vitamin A in the body. The vitamin A present in chilli reduces inflammation of lungs and emphysema caused due to cigarette smoking.

The Health Benefits of Chili Peppers

Chili peppers are extremely healthy for you, and should be included in your regular diet. Here's why.

Health Benefits

Over the years there have been many different views on the effects that regular chillie consumption can have on the the human body. Here we try to pick through he research to see if indeed the humble chillie is good for us.

Effects on blood sugar

Researchers at the University of Tasmania have recently completed a study (published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2006) that suggests the regular consumption of chillies can help your body control insulin levels after eating which could benefit the overweight or diabetics. To be more precise the chillie reduces the amount of insulin the body needs to lower blood sugar levels after a meal by up to about 60%.
During the study candidates that followed a diet high in chillie content had lower blood glucose levels than that for a bland, chilliless diet. The author of the study Kiran Ahuja said “Chilli meals possibly result in lower C-peptide and insulin secretion and higher hepatic clearance of insulin, and the effect is larger if chilli is eaten regularly.”
Although scientists are still trying to understand exactly why this effect occurs the results of the study are surely good news for the overweight and diabetes sufferers.

Inflammation

Capsaicin, the substance that give chilies their heat is well known to contain a neuropeptide associated with the inflammatory process. Chilli related alterations in plasma proteins have been reported in patients with autoinflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid and arthritis.

Congestion

Now you don’t have to be a scientist to work this one out. If you eat a dish loaded with hot chillies the heat from the capsaicin causes secretions, or in other words sweating and a runny nose, that help clear the nasal passage.

Prostate Cancer

A study published by Cancer Research in March 2006 concluded that capsaicin helped stop the spread of prostate cancer. The capsaicin triggered suicide in both primary types of prostate cancer cell lines. “It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models” said S?ren Lehmann, M.D., Ph.D., visiting scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the UCLA School of Medicine. The dosage on mice that produced these effects equated roughly to about 5 habanero peppers a week for an average man.

Stomach Cancer

This appears to be the major stumbling block when it come to the health effect of chillies. Opinion seems to vary greatly as to whether chillies help prevent or cause stomach cancer. Researchers at Yale University of Medicine concluded in 1994 that chili pepper consumption may cause increased risk of stomach cancer. Compared to non consumers of chili peppers, consumers had an increased risk of stomach cancer (odds ratio 5.49; 95%). Among consumers, there was a highly significant trend of increasing risk with increasing self-rated level of chili pepper consumption (high, medium, or low). That said the study said that “definite conclusion is not warranted” because there was no assessment of dose relationship.
Another recent study by Mexico National Institute of Public Health found higher rates of gastric cancer in people with high chillie intake (9-25 jalapenos a day!). However no clinical evidence was found that it was the chillies that were causing the increase in cancer.
A Berkley neurobiology study however found the opposite to be true. They concluded that capsaicin/chillie consumption to be “protective against stomach cancer”. They pointed to the fact that the gastric cancer rates in Mexico, where chilli peppers consumption is particularly high, are relatively low> they also noted the correlation between increased chillie consumption in the USA and falling rates of gastric cancer.

Pain relief

Capsaicin (the substance that give chilies their heat) has been found to give pain relief without and numbing effect usually associated with anesthetics. Harvard researches said recently that capsaicin can be used to target pain receptors without affecting nerve cells. In real terms this means that potentially a visit to the dentists for some fillings won’t have to result in you being unable to talk properly for the rest of the day. Another application might be for the application of pain relief during child birth. Another potentially huge implication might be the use to capsaicin to treat patients in pathological pain without affecting mental function, alertness or other aspects of life that currently are affected by many pain killers.

Conclusion

Perhaps rather predictably there is no clear answer to the question ‘are chillies good for you?’. As with all things i’m sure they are beneficial in some ways and detrimental in others. My advice would be to stop worrying and get cooking!

Kamis, 28 April 2011

Chili A lot Of Hot Benefits