Slashdot Mirror
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."
In other news, cause for Mexican-food flatulence not determined yet.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the idea of Habanero suppositories just does not sit well with me...
(I can hear Johnny Cash singing "Ring of Fire"...)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Sometimes the stuff in those peppers (on their way out...) makes me want to commit suicide!
Yeah, But those Hot Sauce enema treatments are a bitch!
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
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.
My wife *loves* super hot foods, so if this is true, she'll never get prostate cancer!
-- Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
I'm cooking up a great big pot of hot hot hot chili for my girlfriend right now!
Capsaicin
is an excellent topical analgesic also for neural problems, like Diabetic neuropathy.
There is a substance P which transmits the pain to the brain. Capsaicin destroys substance
P if you apply it for 4-5 days multiple times a day & hence for the next couple of weeks
you will not have pain, then you have to report it. Instead of the expensive Capsaicin
cream you can also use a paste made at home of red chilli powder etc. Or even McIlhenny's Tabasco
I have meralgia parasthetic condition & nothing provides relief like chilli paste.
I sense a new product and service for locations near hospitals and clinics offering treatment.... Buttermilk enemas!
I had a sucky sig.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/3813/
You can also masturbate for prostate health! Just make sure you do that before handling hot peppers. Trust me on that one.
My sig is too lon
If you take your medication right, you'll never taste an ounce of spiciness. All the "spicy" stuff will be kept inside a neat little pill casing, presuming the chemical IS all that spicy when isolated from the peppers. Just don't bite.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
Hmm, a quick Google Scholar search for "capsaicin cancer" revealed this. That link, from NIH, seems to indicate that there's evidence that capsaicin is a carconigen:
The cancer increase was dependent on the concentration of these groups in a county. These results strengthen and extend an earlier case-control study which found odds ratios above 5 for the stomach cancer association with capsaicin pepper. It is further evidence that capsaicin is a human carcinogen.
Thoughts?
I have discovered a truly marvelous
how much the Slashdot userbase is aging. Now where are my glasses? I can't find my Viagra without them.
I hope no one gets the terrible idea to try treating their cancer themselves by...
:)
What the fuck am I saying? This could be hilarious!
I hope to hell that someone gets the idea to treat their cancer using the most direct method possible... and I hope that it ends up in the news
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
FTA reference;i n&oldid=43115117
.. deviously.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Capsaic
"Capsaicin is also the active ingredient in the chemical riot control agent pepper spray. When the spray comes in contact with skin, especially eyes or mucous membranes it is very painful."
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper_spray
"Pepper spray (also known as OC spray (from "Oleoresin Capsicum"), OC gas, or capsicum spray) is a lachrymatory agent which is used in riot control, crowd control and personal self-defense, including defense against dogs. It is a non-lethal agent that can be deadly in rare cases. The American Civil Liberties Union claims to have documented fourteen fatalities from the use of pepper spray. The active ingredient in pepper spray is capsaicin, which is a chemical derived from the fruit of plants in the Capsicum genus, including chillis. Long-term effects of pepper spray have not been effectively researched."
Apparently someone was curious.. (Mental image of evil scientist deviously spraying innocent mice with pepper spray while laughing
Give up.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I hope that's a +1 we're laughing AT you funny.
For a good time call www.sawkie.com
who works at Pfizer Global Research & Development, there are many natural substances that can treat diseases and conditions that are not known to the general public. For example, Lipitor, last year contributed to $13 BILLION of Pfizer's $16 BILLION profit. Drinkng 6 to 8 ounces of RED WINE per DAY (AND NO MORE!!!) will likely negate the need of Lipitor and similar drugs later in life for the treatment of elevated cholesterol and plaques in the arteries. The important point of this statement is that one cannot exceed 6 to 8 ounces of RED WINE per day, or else the effects of alcohol(ism) will have serious detrimental effects on the body. Google or Wikipedia 'resveratrol'.
Big pharma doesn't like the general public knowing that natural compounds present in everyday foods can prevent/treat diseases/conditions that arise later in life due to certain metabolic syndromes/disorders/lifestyles, etc... How else would big pharma demand high prices for its 'miracale/block-buster drugs'?
Since I'm a contract scientist working at Pfizer, and not employed by Pfizer, I feel obligated to tell the truth about some of the secrets hidden by the pharmaceutical industry. Don't read too much into what I've written, I'm not advocating the consumption of alcohol, but drinkning 6-8 ounces of red wine per day will keep high cholesterol and the doctor away, for a long, long time.
Having to choose between prostate cancer and jalapeño suppositories is definite proof that God exists and that he has a very sick sense of humor.
If a pepper-spray enema is the cure for prostate cancer, I'll swap you your haemmorhoids...
What are the rates in countries such as South Korea, where many foods are extremely spicy?
-Palal
A simple correction - your prostate is between your urethra and your rectum. In fact, the prostate makes most of the liquid in the ejaculate. If your prostate is too large (BPH), then the the urologist will sometimes do a TURP (also in the BPH article), where the urologist basically goes up your urethra and scoops out heaps of the prostate, in order to free up some space for the poor fellow to relieve himself.
If concern for prostate cancer is raised, a biopsy is done with a terribly evil device that goes up the rectum and spears the prostate with six separate little needles. If they left a little capsaicin behind you would be so sore you wouldn't notice...However, the study as reported by the article was simply consumed capsaicin, not topically applied
Building a healthy future; Connecting communities
Loving spicy foods pays off! Finally, my wife will have to stop complaining when I aromitize the bedroom in the middle of the night.
"But honey, it's part of my health management program!"
Do countries that have generally high capsasin consumption have a lowered incidence of prostate cancer? If one compares countries that eat tons of peppers and ones that don't, if you compensate for age and other factors can you see if there is some kind of correlation?
Very interesting.
Your use of the word innuendo was both apt and poignant.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
It's all fine and well to joke about mexican food all over this thread, some of the zingers are very funny, but this gives me an idea: how about determining the incidence of prostate cancer in Mexico's population?
As an example, one of the typical "delicacies" found in the city of Guadalajara is a dish called "torta ahogada" or "drowned torta", which is pork meat stuffed in baguette-style bread, dipped in tomato sauce, then again in ultra-hot chile de arbol sauce. Garnished with pickled onions, you squeeze lemon juice, add a little rock salt and dig in. A LOT of people in Guadalajara eat this on a regular basis.
As a side note, just as in the United States some people bob for apples in a bucket full of water, there's one stand in Guadalajara that holds competitions, bobbing for tortas in a bucket full of chile de arbol sauce. The winner eats there free for a year. Strictly for masochists, if you ask me.
Anyway, if we compare the percentage of prostate cancer cases in Guadalajara as opposed to, say, Minneapolis, maybe a "real world" result will stick out plainly and clearly. Then again, maybe not, maybe a race is genetically more susceptible to contract prostate cancer, I dunno, but to dig up the data would cost next to nothing and could be worth a try.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Purple grape juice reportedly has the same beneficial effects.
Capsaicin is like garlic, or tea. You can't get too much of it and it does great things for you. Capsaicin has several cardiovascular benefits. It's an anti-coagulant and it also lowers cholesterol and triglycerides. It's an analgesic (particularly effective against pain caused by nerve disorders and arthritis). It's also an effective topical analgesic (though I suspect in very weak mixtures, since it burns like hell otherwise).
Capsaicin kills the bacteria responsible for most stomach ulcers thus, contrary to popular opinion, it actually protects against stomach ulcers. As most people might surmise, it's excellent for clearing congestion.
If you need to lose weight, start eating hot sauce. Capsaicin increases the metabolism, thermogenesis, and oxygen consumption.
If you find hot sauce "too hot", then work your way up. Start with mildly hot sauces and slowly increase the heat over time. Most web sites that specialize in selling hot sauces also have the Scoville ratings for those sauces, so you can do be methodical about it if you want. Your body builds up a tolerance for the burning sensation in the mouth and before long, you'll find yourself able to eat sauces you didn't think you could. You just need to be consistent and eat some every day. I try to consume at least 3 teaspoons of 12,000 Scoville salsa a day.
My personal preference is El Yucateco Salsa Kutbil-ik de. It's a brown Mayan style habanero salsa from the Yucatan. I'm kind of partial to it 'cause I lived in the Yucatan for several years and it's pretty popular there. They also make a red sauce (6000 Scovilles) and a green (9000 Scovilles).
This is typical for how scientists try to make the best out of bad experimental results. Yes, it's true that 80% of the cancer cells committed suicide, but that's because 80% of the mice themselves committed suicide when the capsaicin was "applied" to their prostates. You would, too.
Some of the mice hung themselves, while some others shot themselves; the scientists still haven't figured out where they got the ropes and guns, which only underlines how painful the treatment is.
I'm a nurse. This is great news! I can just come out with capsaicin impregnated catheters, and make my fortune. Just slide it on in and the timed release of all those scoville units will make your cancer cells end it all. Some patients may experience some side effects.....
Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually dese
...I'm very glad to hear this (though it is, like most stories involving cancer, FUD or euFUD, it's "positive" counterpart). I will happily continue to put Dave's Insanity Sauce on my dishes :-) Anyone knows where I can get DI Spice or Vicious Vampire in Germany cheaper than at pepperworld.de (Especially VV is expensive at 10)? I want to try upgrading myself from grade 9 (50000-100000 Scoville) to grade 10 (100000-500000 Scoville), the hottest possible stuff (All above 500000 Scoville isn't produced for food, because humans apparently can't distinguish the taste anymore) for bragging reasons :-P
One of the more memorable factoids from a neurobiology course I took years back was that the long-term desenzitation that one experiences from enjoying a capsaicin-rich diet is due to cell death in the taste buds. Short term adaptation does occur via another mechanism, but tastbud necrosis is important in the long term. This also explains why you feel the impact of the tex mex spice much more after not having had any for a few months - you have regrown the previously killed taste buds!
The tast bud death is however a necrotic effect - cell killing, via a vanilloid receptor - rather than suicide. See e g Caterina MJ et al, Nature 1997.
Chili Facts When the heat content of a pepper is measured in Scoville units, a bell pepper rates zero, a jalapeno is 2,500 to 5,000 units, a cayenne 30,000 to 50,000 and the habanero, considered the hottest pepper, 100,000 to 500,000. They release endorphons into the brain, promoting a sense of well being. Chilies also can be used to remove barnacles from ships.
As soon as I read the article, I did a Google search for prostate cancer and hispanic. I found this page which states:
Hispanic-American and Native-American men have lower rates of prostate cancer than do white men. Worldwide, the lowest rates of prostate cancer are in Asian countries; the highest rates of prostate cancer are in Northern European countries.
Seems to support the theory!
But why is the rum gone?
This property comes in really handy if squirrels start stealing from your birdfeeder. Just mix a healthy dose of cayenne pepper with the birdseed - the squirrels lose interest really fast, but the birds don't even notice. The only trouble is that the cayenne tends to cause the seed to stick together into a big solid mass when it gets damp. Also, refilling, emptying, and cleaning the birdfeeder can become an interesting process when you have clouds of cayenne pepper forming around you!
Sean