ArticleChinese medical journal2017
High Spicy Food Intake and Risk of Cancer: A Meta-analysis of Case-control Studies.
Article in Chinese medical journal, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Risk factors for gastric cancer: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of spicy food consumption on overweight/obesity, hypertension and blood lipids in China: a meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies.Nutrition journal · 2023Pooled it
- Spicy Food and Chili Peppers and Multiple Health Outcomes: Umbrella Review.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2022Pooled it
- Association between chili pepper consumption and risk of gastrointestinal-tract cancers: A meta-analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Spicy food intake and overweight/obesity in rural Southwest China: findings from a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Association of spicy food consumption with colorectal polyp and adenoma prevalence: findings from the Lanxi Pre-Colorectal Cancer Cohort (LP3C).Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- No evidence that spice consumption is a cancer prevention mechanism in human populations.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- Oral mycobiota and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.BMC cancer · 2022Article
- The role of diet and nutrition related indicators in biliary diseases: an umbrella review of systematic review and meta-analysis.Nutrition & metabolism · 2022Review
- Gastric Cancer Risk Was Associated with Dietary Factors Irritating the Stomach Wall: A Case-Control Study in Korea.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Esophageal Carcinoma and Associated Risk Factors: A Case-control Study in Two Tertiary Care Hospitals of Kabul, Afghanistan.Cancer management and research · 2022Article
- Associations of spicy food flavour and intake frequency with blood lipid levels and risk of abnormal serum lipid levels in Chinese rural population: a cross-sectional study.Public health nutrition · 2021Article
- Characteristics of spicy food consumption and its relation to lifestyle behaviours: results from 0.5 million adults.International journal of food sciences and nutrition · 2021Article
- Bile reflux is an independent risk factor for precancerous gastric lesions and gastric cancer: An observational cross-sectional study.Journal of digestive diseases · 2021Observational
- Spicy food consumption and risk of gastrointestinal-tract cancers: findings from the China Kadoorie Biobank.International journal of epidemiology · 2021Article
- Oral microbiome and pancreatic cancer.World journal of gastroenterology · 2020Article
- Development of a database of capsaicinoid contents in foods commonly consumed in Korea.Food science & nutrition · 2020Article
- Induction and Prevention of Gastric Cancer with CombinedCancers · 2020Article
- Study on the Salivary Microbial Alteration of Men With Head and Neck Cancer and Its Relationship With Symptoms in Southwest China.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2020Article
- Carotenoids ofAntioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
background: Studies on the association between spicy food intake and cancer risk have reported inconsistent results. We quantitatively assessed this association by conducting a meta-analysis based on evidence from case-control studies.
methods: PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library were searched for eligible publications. Combined odds ratios (OR s) with their 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated using a random- or fixed-effects model. The methodological quality of the included articles was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale (NOS). All data were analyzed using STATA 11.0 software (version 11.0; StataCorp., College Station, TX, USA). Subgroup analyses were also performed with stratification by region, sex, number of cases, cancer subtype, source of the control group, and NOS score.
results: A total 39 studies from 28 articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis (7884 patients with cancer and 10,142 controls). Comparison of the highest versus lowest exposure category in each study revealed a significant OR of 1.76 (95% CI = 1.35-2.29) in spite of significant heterogeneity (P < 0.001). In the subgroup analyses, this positive correlation was still found for gastric cancer, different regions, different numbers of cases, different sources of the control group, and high-quality articles (NOS score of ≥ 7). However, no statistically significant association was observed for women, esophageal cancer, gallbladder cancer, or low-quality articles (NOS score of <7). No evidence of publication bias was found.
conclusions: Evidence from case-control studies suggested that a higher level of spicy food intake may be associated with an increased incidence of cancer despite significant heterogeneity. More studies are warranted to clarify our understanding of the association between high spicy food intake and the risk of cancer.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.