"eating chili peppers could add years to your life"

Not all news is bad in the newspaper today.

That headline about chili peppers has put a bounce in my step. My consumption of chilies now has two justifications.

First, they add layers to almost every food. Nacho, the cook at Rooster's restaurant in San Patricio Melaque, and I have experimented with my love of chilies over the years. One of our favorite creations is a pancake filled with jalapeño, onion, and bacon -- called, of course, pancake de Estiv. (The oatmeal with jalapeño, onion, and bacon was not quite as successful.)

Second, if I play my peppers correctly, I may end up playing the real-life role of Same Jaffe in Lost Horizon. Just by continuing my daily consumption of Mexico's best agricultural product.

I long ago realized that journalists (and especially headline writers) understand very little about their trade when reporting on matters scientific. When scientific studies are released to the public, newspapers, and especially television, will start brandying about claims that sound as if they should be on late-night infomercials.

You know the type. "Drinking red wine cures heart disease." "Fat causes diabetes." "Buying knives with names that sound Japanese will improve your cooking to the point that your guests will believe Wolfgang Puck works in your kitchen." Well, maybe not that last one. But you get my point.

The article in today's newspaper, whose headline announces "eating chili peppers could add years to your life," promises quite a lot more than the actual study delivers. I will give the headliner credit for that precatory "could" rather than the over-hyped and expected "will."

The American Heart Association recently issued a study that synthesized data from a number of other studies in several countries. The conclusion was that regularly consuming chili peppers is "associated with a 25% reduction in death from any cause." The study specifically examined the effects of chilies on heart disease and cancer, finding that chili-chomping "may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 26% and cancer by 23% compared to people who never or only rarely consumed chili pepper." 

That sounds good until you notice that the promised result of spicing up your diet has now migrated from the headline's "could" to the scientific "associated with" and "may." 

Why the difference in language? It is not until the end of the article that we discover what we all should know about these studies. The news media always promise more than what the scientific studies actually provide.

The report's senior author, the delightfully named Dr. Bo Xu, is quite clear in what should have been the second sentence of the newspaper article. "The exact reasons and mechanisms remain unknown. Researchers cannot conclusively say that chili pepper consumption can lead to a longer and healthier life."

Of course, they can't. Dr. Bo Xu is simply repeating the scientific maxim that correlation does not imply causation -- a maxim every journalist who writes about science should be required to write 10,000 on a chalkboard before writing his first story on science. Just as journalists who write about law matters cannot distinguish between a "not guilty" and an "innocent" finding.

Like almost of these studies, it concludes with "more research is required."

Two years ago, a chili-eating contest was held in Barra de Navidad. The organizer of the event was promoting his products made from home-grown chilies. Some of them very exotic.

When I met with the organizers last year to plan that year's events, we decided the emphasis was wrong. We wanted to advertised how chili peppers can enhance food, not how "dangerous" they were for the frat-boy gulping set.

I love the taste of chilies. Each variety has a completely different taste that pairs well with different foods. Gelatin with mango and serranos. Roast pork and habaneros. Chicken enchiladas with jalapeños. The possibilities are almost endless.

As for me, I am going to follow the study's admonition to continue my own research. The study indicates that if there any life-extending benefits in eating chilis, the subject would need to eat chili peppers at least four times per week.

If that is true, my daily consumption of two or three chilli peppers may mean that I am still going to be downing habaneros sometime in the late 2090s. 

I may yet be cast in Sam Jaffe's role.