- Gentlemen,
eat your chili peppers. Habanero, jalapeno (pictured), Scotch bonnet --
those hot but tasty varieties of the capsicum frutescens have multiple
health benefits -- including the ability to drive prostate cancer cells
to kill themselves, researchers announced yesterday.
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- According to a team from the University
of California at Los Angeles and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the hot stuff
in peppers -- capsaicin -- caused 80 percent of active prostate cancer
cells growing in mice to "follow the molecular pathways leading to
apoptosis," or cell death.
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- The cancer cells literally committed
suicide. What's more, the cancer tumors of the mice treated with a hot
pepper extract were one-fifth the size of untreated mice.
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- "Capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative
effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture," said Dr. Soren
Lehmann. "It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate
tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models."
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- What does this mean in the kitchen? Tex-Mex
or curry fans are in luck: the hotter the pepper, the more the benefit.
According to Dr. Lehmann, the mice were fed a dose of pepper extract equivalent
to what a normal man might consume -- 400 milligrams of extract three times
a week. That amount translates to three to eight fresh habanero peppers.
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- Medically speaking, capsaicin inhibited
the action of NF-kappa Beta, a substance found in cells that causes them
to grow out of control. Capsaicin also regulates certain proteins that
effect the growth of the cells.
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- "Increased concentrations of capsaicin
caused more prostate cancer cells to freeze in a non-proliferative state,"
according to the study.
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- American men develop prostate cancer
more than any other type of malignancy -- 232,000 new cases are diagnosed
in the United States annually; 30,000 men die of prostate cancer in the
United States each year.
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- Hot peppers have received accolades from
researchers in recent years for their antioxidant, or cancer-fighting,
effects. Anti-inflammatory properties in peppers have been tapped for treatment
of migraines, arthritis and muscle pain. Hot peppers also have been found
to suppress appetites and clear a stuffy head; they can aggravate existing
heartburn but not cause it.
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- They are a good source of vitamins A,
C and E, folic acid and potassium. Peppers are low in calories and sodium
and contain no carbohydrates. Their taste has spawned numerous appreciation
societies around the world, not to mention global competitions to determine
the hottest variety on the planet.
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- Still, the chili pepper came under fire
in a 2002 Yale University report that established a link between the hot
pods and stomach cancer in Mexican workers who ate from 9 to 25 jalapenos
a day. The claim has been disputed by other researchers who found that
rates of stomach cancer declined in the United States -- though consumption
of salsa, chili and other hot foods actually had increased.
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- http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060316-122857-9293r.htm
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