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Eating World's Hottest Pepper Sparks Brain Disorder, Thunderclap Headaches (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Extremely hot peppers don't just blister your mouth and bum -- they can also spark fiery havoc in your brain, according to a report published Monday in BMJ Case Reports. An otherwise healthy 34-year-old man developed a blood-flow disorder in his brain and suffered several debilitating "thunderclap" headaches after entering a hot pepper eating contest, U.S. doctors reported. The man had managed to get down a Carolina Reaper pepper, which in 2013 earned the title of the world's hottest chili by Guinness World Records.
The searing pepper didn't sit well in the chili-eating contestant. Immediately after slaying a Reaper, the man began dry heaving and developed pain in his neck and the back of his skull. That morphed into a diffuse, painful headache. Over the next few days, he experienced thunderclap headaches at least twice -- but likely more, he just couldn't recall exactly. Thunderclap headaches are severe, sudden, with quick pains that strike like a clap of thunder rumbling through your skull. They tend to peak within 60 seconds and can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, altered mental state, seizures, and fever. Their stormy aches can be a sign of serious problems, like bleeding in the brain, a brain infection, or a cerebrospinal fluid leak. The pain was excruciating enough that the man went to the emergency room. But doctors didn't find any immediate problems with him to explain the episodes. He didn't have any slurred speech, loss of vision, neurological deficits, muscle weakness, or tingling. His blood pressure was a little high, but not extremely so, at 134/69 mmHg. Initial CT scans found no problems in his neck and head.
The searing pepper didn't sit well in the chili-eating contestant. Immediately after slaying a Reaper, the man began dry heaving and developed pain in his neck and the back of his skull. That morphed into a diffuse, painful headache. Over the next few days, he experienced thunderclap headaches at least twice -- but likely more, he just couldn't recall exactly. Thunderclap headaches are severe, sudden, with quick pains that strike like a clap of thunder rumbling through your skull. They tend to peak within 60 seconds and can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, altered mental state, seizures, and fever. Their stormy aches can be a sign of serious problems, like bleeding in the brain, a brain infection, or a cerebrospinal fluid leak. The pain was excruciating enough that the man went to the emergency room. But doctors didn't find any immediate problems with him to explain the episodes. He didn't have any slurred speech, loss of vision, neurological deficits, muscle weakness, or tingling. His blood pressure was a little high, but not extremely so, at 134/69 mmHg. Initial CT scans found no problems in his neck and head.
The summary is perhaps a little misleading, the paper says in the very next sentence that CT angiography turned up reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome which can cause this kind of headache. Since capsaicin can cause arterial constriction, and this started immediately after eating the pepper, they are tentatively assuming a causal relationship.
Most days. I have become a big fan of reaper powder sprinkled on stuff. In my experience, the peppers will usually make my headaches (even migraines) go away better than any medicine I've tried, so ymmv...
Perhaps.
I grow Carolina Reapers. I do not eat Carolina Reapers.
Well, I mean, I do eat them: I blend them with a lot of salt and plenty of strong vinegar and freeze them in squeeze-bottles until it is time to consume. The mixture seems to keep indefinitely, once thawed, under normal refrigeration.
I've also fermented them and done the same sort of thing with them, which produces very different taste.
The sauce is a crowd pleaser and it is very tasty. But despite being made from the hottest of peppers, I've had it described as being "surprisingly mild." In sauce form, it's easy to use tiny amounts.
But I don't eat them. I've chopped up tiny slivers of one and put it on a baked potato (with plenty of butter, sour cream, and cheese), many times, and I ate those potatoes, but I don't just -- you know -- eat them as they are.
Eating these peppers as they are is a really fucking stupid thing to do. Then-girlfriend's much-younger then-high-school-aged brother liked to take them to school with him; I encouraged him not to. He used them as dare material. I feel bad for those poor bastards.
These fuckers are mean. When I had a surplus of some of these and some other scary-hot peppers one year (more than I could bottle), I tried to give some to the Asian grocery store next door who was always kind to me, just a basket on the counter of peppers for folks to -- you know -- just take for free. "Too hot," they said after a couple of days. "Nobody wants these," they added when they gave them back). A bunch of spicey-food-loving Mexicans that my Dad knows also rejected them ("too hot," they said too)..
And yes, it's "all in your head," but the body's reaction to what's in your head can be very damaging to said body.
That all said: I'm lead to wonder if the "thunderclap headaches" in TFA weren't caused directly by the violent retching. The human body is pretty fucking hard on itself when it comes to expelling (what it considers to be) poisons.
Kid-proof tablet..
In some cases, "proper amount" means homeopathatic medicine. I.e. not even an atom of the substance. Also known as placebo medication.
Powerful stuff.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Can we add all those idiots that insist in jumping out of fully functioning planes or strapping themselves underneath cloth contraptions to fly around in the air without any good reason? And of course the imbeciles that climb up mountains despite there being nothing on top they want to get.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, the stuff about hot peppers literally causing physical lesions as if they were thermally hot is folklore. Capsaicin stimulates nerves via the TRPV1 receptor that also responds to heat, and so gives the sensation of burning. It causes no physical changes directly.
As another poster here has noted rare idiosyncratic rashes can occur, but lots of things can cause rashes in some people, it is really an immune system abnormality in the victim.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Much like Vanilla Extract or the variety of other extracts. A Ghost Pepper can be used to give heat to a dish, but its small size will not bring pepper flavor to it. Eating raw Ghost peppers, is like eating baking chocolate, or drinking a shot of Vanilla Extract or Vinegar. Unpleasant by itself but used in the right amounts it adds flavor and/or changes the chemical composition of the food to make it palatable.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.