News headlines today are burning up with the release of new research from the University of California that shows that capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, kills human prostate cancer cells. Unfortunately, thats not what the researchers actually said. At least, not according to New Scientist:
But Koeffler says that men concerned about prostate cancer should not interpret these findings as a reason to up their consumption of hot peppers. He stresses that the compound has not been shown to prevent prostate cancer but instead simply slows its growth. And he adds that he hopes to see human trials in the next two years assessing capsaicin’s effect on prostate cancer.
I love spicy food, but on the other hand, even the most extreme hot pepper nuts that I know couldn’t ingest the kind of heat that Koeffler’s mice were subjected to. According to New Scientist, a 200lb person would need to consume ten fresh habañera peppers per week, which is roughly the heat-equivalent of eating eighty jalapeños in order to attain the cancer-slowing effect that was observed by Koeffler and his colleagues. I find that one jalapeño per meal is spicy enough; hard to imagine over eleven per day. Imagine how the mice felt!
