Chillies 'kill' cancer
Chillies 'kill' cancer
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Wednesday, 15, Mar 2006 09:11
New research claims that spicy chilli peppers can help kill cancer cells, inducing apoptosis and causing them to "commit suicide".
The team from University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) and the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute found that tumours in mice with prostate cancer were a fifth of the size of their compatriots when fed capsaicin, the active "spicy" chemical in chillies.
Writing in the journal Cancer Research, study author Dr Soren Lehmann said that "capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture".
The researchers claim that giving a human the weekly equivalent of three to eight habanera peppers - the hottest known peppers - would slow development of prostate cells and kill others.
Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in men in the US and is said to be responsible for 221,000 deaths worldwide each year and 10,000 in Britain alone.
While the report's authors claim that eating equivalent of 120 jalapeno peppers every week would be good for men, others are more sceptical.
Chris Hiley, head of research at the Prostate Cancer Charity in the UK, said that while she found the research "interesting", she warned against men eating too many chilli peppers until there was a way to extract capsaicin.
"We caution men with prostate cancer in the UK against upping their weekly intake of the hottest known chillies," she said.
"High intake of hot chillies has been linked with stomach cancers in the populations of India and Mexico."
The charity's advice until there was further research was that men should cut down on fatty foods, eat less red meat and take in more fruit and vegetables.
Unfortunately for men looking to follow this advice and increase their chilli intake, the most popular dishes containing chillies, such as jalfrezi or chilli con carne, are often high in fats and red meat.