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Journal reference: Cancer Research (DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-05-0087)
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13:22 15 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Roxanne Khamsi
The same component of jalapeņo peppers that makes them burn the tongue
also appears to kill prostate cancer cells. Prostate tumours in mice
treated with the compound, called capsaicin, shrank to one-fifth the
size of those in non-treated mice, found a new study.
To explore capsaicin's effect, Phillip Koeffler of the Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles, US, and colleagues exposed human
prostate cancer cells in a laboratory dish to the natural compound.
They found that capsaicin dramatically slowed the proliferation of the
cells in the dish.
And this effect increased as the dose of the chilli compound was
raised. Three per cent of prostate cancer cells committed "suicide" -
programmed cell death - at low concentrations, rising to up to 75% of
tumour cells dying at a higher dose.
Koeffler says this is the first experimental evidence supporting the
notion that capsaicin stops the growth of prostate cancer cells.
Human cancer
He believes that capsaicin jump starts a pathway that triggers cell
death. Molecular tests suggest that it achieves this by causing a
cascade of events inside the cell that lead to the release of a
protein complex called NF-kappa Beta, which subsequently causes the
cell to self-destruct. This is crucial since cancer is characterised
by the uncontrolled growth of cells.
The team also found that capsaicin suppressed the growth of human
prostate cancer cells - grafted into mice with suppressed immune
systems - by about 80%.
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.
Take a chilli pill
After prostate cancer is surgically removed, it tends to reappear in
about a quarter of patients, the researchers note. For this reason,
they say that capsaicin may be most effective in slowing cancer's
return instead of stopping it from first developing.
He adds that one also must take dosages into consideration. A
200-pound (90-kilogram) person would have to eat about 10 fresh
habaņera peppers - one of the hottest chillies around - per week to
consume an amount of capsaicin equivalent to the levels received by
Koeffler's mice.
A habaņera typically contains 300,000 Scoville units - a scale used to
measure the hotness of chillis - making them positively scorching to
the mouth in comparison with the more popular jalapeņos, which contain
roughly 2500 to 5000 Scoville units. For this reason, he says it is
unreasonable to imagine anyone eating fresh peppers to prevent the
return of prostate cancer: "You would have to take it in pill form."
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posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday March 15 2006
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