46 | NewScientist | 22/29 December 2007 www.newscientist.com

Some like it hot… but food this fiery needs a health warning

● AT THE Quaker Steak & Lube in Erie,

Pennsylvania, a man sits down for an

unusual and dangerous meal. He signs a half-

page legal document releasing the restaurant

from any liability. A crowd gathers around the

diner and a waitress places a small carton

before him. In it sits a brown chicken wing

drenched in sauce – an Atomic Wing. Before he

even takes a bite, the man’s eyes start to water,

and he turns his head away to breathe. Turning

back, he grabs the wing and rips off half of it

with his teeth. Beads of sweat pop out on his

flushed forehead. The ordeal has begun.

I’ve witnessed this scene several times, and

the effect is always the same. I have even eaten

an Atomic Wing, though I wouldn’t advise it –

it’s so spicy that it hurts. So why do it?

There’s the sheer bravado, of course, and

the lure of a certain kind of fame. If you eat 10

Atomic Wings, your name is posted forever at

the restaurant. And if you can take the heat,

there may be health benefits that go beyond

clearing the sinuses and releasing endorphins.

The findings are far from clear-cut, but there is

tentative evidence that eating hot food might

ward off cancer and other deadly diseases.

Inspired by the heroics at the Quaker Steak

& Lube, I resolved to go one better. I would

track down the Bhut Jolokia or “ghost chilli”,

recently crowned the world’s hottest pepper,

and see if it’s all that. Its current home is New

Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper

Institute in Las Cruces, which has been

growing, testing and selling chillies for more

than 100 years. “Chilli is part of our culture,”

says Paul Bosland, head of the institute. “It

permeates the entire state.”

Chilli peppers were domesticated more

than 6000 years ago in what is now Latin

America. In the 15th century Christopher

Columbus sailed in search of peppercorns, but

found chillies instead. Later the Portuguese

took them to Asia, where they spread like

wildfire. Now they are indispensable

ingredients in any respectable kitchen.

The key to their heat is capsaicin, a

compound found only in chilli peppers. It can

be synthesised, but the best way to get it is by

extracting it from chillies. Pure capsaicin is

colourless, odourless and tasteless. It is the

main ingredient in pepper spray. It also has

well-established health benefits: millions of

people rub capsaicin-based creams onto their

skin to alleviate arthritis and muscle pain.

Capsaicin is most often encountered in

spicy food. The compound tricks the body into

thinking it’s hot when it’s not: when capsaicin

encounters nerve cells that detect heat and

pain it triggers an inflammatory response,

releasing neurotransmitters that lead to pain

and swelling. The more capsaicin, the more

neurotransmitter is released.

So how did the world’s hottest chilli get to

Las Cruces? In 2000, reports arrived from the

Assam region of north-east India suggesting

that the Indian Defence Research Laboratory

in Tezpur had found a chilli with a rating of

855,000 Scoville heat units – the arcane scale

by which such things are measured. That put

it ahead of the reigning champion Red Savina

Habanero, which rated a mere 577,000 (see

Chart). No samples were available for testing,

however, and the matter remained in doubt.

The following year, Bosland travelled to

India and tracked down some seeds to a local

market. Back at his lab in New Mexico, it took

several seasons for Bosland to breed enough

chillies for testing. His efforts were rewarded

last February when he announced the official

notification from Guinness World Records

that he had the world’s hottest chilli – coming

in at a staggering 1,001,304 Scoville units.

What good is such a scorching chilli? Some

researchers think high doses of capsaicin

might help treat cancer. In April 2007, a team

from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer

Institute in Pennsylvania reported that they

had grafted human pancreatic cancer cells

into mice and injected them with capsaicin.

The amount was equivalent to a person eating

one spicy Indian meal per day. After three to

five days of treatment per week, the tumours

on the capsaicin-treated mice were about half

the size of the tumours on the control mice.

The researchers found that capsaicin

induced cell death, or apoptosis, in cancer cells

through a variety of mechanisms. Levels of

Bax, a protein that triggers apoptosis, were

higher in the mice treated with capsaicin.

While the cancer cells died, normal human

cells were unaffected. The key lies in the

mitochondria, says lead researcher Sanjay

Srivastava, now at Texas Tech University in

www.newscientist.com 22/29 December 2007 | NewScientist | 47

Lubbock. When increased levels of Bax move

into the mitochondria of cancerous cells, the

membrane wall around the mitochondrion

weakens, releasing a protein that is soon

followed by cell death. Srivastava hopes to

begin clinical trials within five years.

Meanwhile, a team from the University of

California, Los Angeles, tested mice with

prostate cancer. When they were given large

doses of capsaicin – equivalent to a human

eating 10 habanero peppers three times a

week – 80 per cent of the cancer cells died, and

the remaining tumours were about one-fifth

the size of those of the untreated mice ( Cancer

Research, vol 66, p 3222 ). “It wouldn’t be

surprising to see an effect overnight,” says

lead researcher Phillip Koeffler, director of

haematology and oncology at Cedars-Sinai

Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Don’t spice up your food too much just yet,

though: it could do you more harm than good.

Studies in the 1990s were inconclusive as to

whether eating large amounts of peppers

caused stomach cancer or helped to prevent it.

What’s more, capsaicin can worsen heartburn

and abdominal pain. Although there are no

known cases of chilli-induced deaths, the

concentration of capsaicin in commercially

available sauces can be extreme, and some

people may suffer allergic reactions. “It’s only

a matter of time before someone dies from

eating these incredibly hot sauces,” says Dave

DeWitt, author of 31 books on chilli peppers.

So why breed ridiculously spicy chillies?

“Why do people climb Everest?” says Bosland.

“Because we can.” To get a really spicy pepper,

he says, you have to stress the plant – deprive

it of water, grow it in extreme heat, bring it to

the brink of death – and then pick it. What

doesn’t kill a chilli makes it more potent.

And while a chilli won’t kill me, it can make

me feel like I’m about to die. Bosland kindly

delivered me a dozen dried samples of Bhut

Jolokia. They looked like elongated sun-dried

tomatoes: red, shrivelled and desiccated. They

didn’t burn to the touch or have a strong

scent. This was the moment of truth: I started

by biting off one-third of a pepper. It tasted

like rice paper at first, crunchy but with a

slight chewiness. A few seconds later I felt it

burning and promptly swallowed.

Big mistake. Immediately the back of my

throat caught fire. I opened my mouth to

breathe, and it was like blowing oxygen onto

hot coals. I breathed through my nose but

couldn’t get enough air. As I paced the room,

gasping fiery breaths, my eyes watered,

pressure built behind my ears, and my

adrenalin level rose. Speaking for more than

a few seconds was impossible. Soon I was

alternating ice cream and ice water to soothe

my burning throat. It took a good 15 minutes

for the worst of the effects to pass, leaving me

light-headed and a little weak, as if I had just

sprinted a lap around a track.

Eating the Bhut Jolokia was as painful as

advertised, but I rather enjoyed the short-lived

high. I can’t vouch for any health effects just

yet. But I might have another one soon… ●

Eric Bland is busy preparing a special holiday feast

BR

ETT

RYD

ER