Hot Pepper Kills Prostate Cancer

brian0918 writes "U.S. and Japanese researchers have announced results of a study showing that capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot, can cause prostate cancer cells to kill themselves. 'Capsaicin led 80 percent of human prostate cancer cells growing in mice to commit suicide in a process known as apoptosis, the researchers said.' This led to tumors one fifth the size of those in untreated mice."

Comments

Three to eight...

[FireballX301]

Lehmann estimated that the mice ate the human equivalent of 400 milligrams of capsaicin three times a week. That is about the amount found in three to eight fresh habanero peppers, depending on how hot the peppers are.

I may be a lightweight bastard, but I cannot eat a single habanero without violently vomiting.

400 mg of Capsaicin is basically like eating pepper spray. Even if it's in capsule pill form you may vomit it up from your stomach. I wonder if there's any way for a local application to the prostate instead of standard ingestion.

Re:Three to eight...

[modecx]

Capsaicin doesn't do a thing to tissues that don't have neurons to which the molecules can bind. I keep telling this to people that insist that eating peppers all the time will destroy your stomach... But some people just don't listen to reason, but instead to old wives tales. It seems that many membranes have the neurons that capsaicin triggers, and they're mostly on the face, and in and around the anus, of all places. If you managed to swallow a habanero whole, it shouldn't cause a problem unless some of that capsaicin survives the digestion process, and then you'll be singing a Johnny Cash song.

Most birds, incidentally, don't have receptors that capsaicin works with, so they can eat peppers all day long and not have a problem.