• Bmc Public Health · Jan 2014

    Spicy food consumption is associated with adiposity measures among half a million Chinese people: the China Kadoorie Biobank study.

    • Dianjianyi Sun, Jun Lv, Wei Chen, Shengxu Li, Yu Guo, Zheng Bian, Canqing Yu, Huiyan Zhou, Yunlong Tan, Junshi Chen, Zhengming Chen, Liming Li, and China Kadoorie Biobank collaborative group.
    • Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, 38 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100191, China. lmlee@vip.163.com.
    • Bmc Public Health. 2014 Jan 1;14:1293.

    BackgroundFew animal experiments and volunteer-based intervention studies have showed a controversial effect of spicy foods on weight management; however, information is scant on the association between spicy food intake and obesity. This study aims to examine the impact of spicy food on quantitative adiposity measures in the Chinese population; a population with a low prevalence of general obesity, but a high prevalence of central obesity.MethodsA total of 434,556 adults (255,094 females), aged 30-79 years, were included from the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) study. Information on spicy food intake was obtained using a questionnaire survey. Body mass index (BMI), percentage body fat (BF%), waist circumference (WC), and WC/height ratio (WHtR) were analyzed as continuous variables.ResultsThe prevalence of daily spicy food eating was 30.4% in males and 30.0% in females, with dramatically geographic diversity (ranging from 99.4% in Hunan to 2.7% in Zhejiang). The covariates-adjusted BMI, BF%, WC, and WHtR significantly increased with increasing frequency, strength, and duration of spicy food eating regardless of gender (p < 0.001). Among regular spicy food consumers, strength of spicy food eating showed significant and positive association with all adiposity measures in both genders (except for BF% in males). Compared with non-consumers, daily spicy food eating was significantly associated with an increase of 0.44 and 0.51 of BMI (kg/m2), 0.79 and 1.01 of BF%, 1.4 and 1.0 of WC (cm), and 0.008 and 0.006 of WHtR in males and females, respectively. In stratified analyses of 18 consecutive BMI subgroups, a significantly increasing trend in the effect of daily spicy food eating on WC and WHtR with increasing BMI was noted in males; whereas a decreasing trend was seen in females.ConclusionsThe data indicate that spicy food intake is a risk factor for obesity in Chinese adult population, especially for central obesity in males. Further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying this association.

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