Chili As Ultimate Painkiller in Medicine

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Chili As Ultimate Painkiller in Medicine

Could chili peppers relieve pain?
Could the humble chili pepper hold the answer to arthritis pain?
(As reported in BBC News)

Harvard researchers have discovered that combining the ‘hot’ ingredient in chili peppers with anesthesia dulls pain nerves without dulling all the surrounding nerves.

“We’ve introduced a local anesthetic selectively into specific populations of neurons,” explains HMS Professor Bruce Bean, an author on the paper, which appears in Nature today (Oct. 4). “Now we can block the activity of pain-sensing neurons without disrupting other kinds of neurons that control movements or non-painful sensations.”

“We’re optimistic that this method will eventually be applied to humans and change our experience during procedures ranging from knee surgery to tooth extractions,” adds Clifford Woolf of MGH, who is senior author on the study. (Harvardscience.harvard.edu )

The FDA approved a topical form of capsaicin for treating pain more than 20 years ago, which is still sold without a prescription. Several studies have shown capsaicin may be somewhat useful for managing pain related to surgery and mouth sores due to chemotherapy and radiation.

“Scientists at King's College, London are hoping they can harness the active capsaicin in chili and adapt it to combat inflammation and pain in arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease, in which the body's immune system attacks the joints, leading to pain, inflammation and stiffness. It affects the quality of life for these who
suffer this pathologic pain.
It affects about
600,000 people in the UK. “

Chili cream ointments

Remedies are also available for painful joints, frostbite, post-herpetic neuralgia caused by shingles.

Chili muscle rub

When conventional anesthetics are injected into the spine; besides the targeted pain receptor cells, they also interfere with other normal nerves cells. This causes temporary paralysis .

At present, despite the intolerable burning effect, chili has been used widely in folk medicine.

Drug manufacturers ironically capitalize on its characteristic burning effect to help reduce pains. Pains in view are those in muscles caused by rheumatism, arthritis, simple backache, headaches, strains and sprains.

The remedial products, sort of traditional and conventional, come in different forms. May it be in

cream tubes, ointments,
chili or capsicum plasters (usually perforated for better ventilation, or for intensity reduction who know!) and
capsicum bandage.

The capsicum plasters are very popular amongst the Chinese and the Japanese, and Asians. Well, I should say it works for me and many. Other products include capsaicin’s perceived ability to stop bleeding. In this case, capsaicin stimulates blood flow to the affected area, reduces inflammation and associated discomfort.

Basing on such capitalization on pain, users need to be cautious about the duration of application. Follow written instructions closely. Get the optimum time duration of application; such that the sensation of pain created is just enough to neutralize the same pain sensation to be treated! Overdose of time would bring additional pain!

Present researches carried out on the soothing effect of capsaicin are of the ultimate objective that one day, scientist will be able to develop a new generation of painkiller.

This new painkiller would very desirably just numb the targeted area without causing general numbness and unconsciousness as arise from conventional local anesthetics.

The Harvard research team works on this vision. This is
how the experiment works:

The test drug injected into test animals has two active ingredients:
It comprises the capsaicin molecule from chili and the second molecule, the anesthetic component, Q. These two components work together in unison.

Under normal circumstances without the help of capsaicin, The Q component is too big to break through the wall of the pain receptor to stop it from receiving the pain signal.

Capsaicin assists by opening a channel in the cell wall of the pain receptor cells. The Q molecule then goes in and intercept the pain signal. Thus pain is not felt.

The beautiful advantage is that capsaicin can only open the walls on the pain receptor cells, and not the normal nerve cells.

This produced the much desired effect of exact targeting the pain area
under treatment without inflicting paralysis on to other normal parts of the body.

In far anticipation, this ideal painkiller could one day, allow women to give birth painlessly using an epidural which does not paralyze the lower body.

Also it would allow a patient to have open-heart surgery while remaining conscious!

Dr Story Landis, the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the US, said that patients in chronic pain might also benefit.

"It holds the promise of major future breakthroughs for the millions of people who suffer with disabling pain."

Harvard researchers have discovered that combining the ‘hot’ ingredient in chili peppers with anesthesia dulls pain nerves without dulling all the surrounding nerves.

Since chilies are so promising in the field of health and medicine, you may want to try some chili recipes for your daily food intake:

How to cook crispy fritters

Have a sweat-dripping and nose-running adventure!
Try the spicy curry noodle

Fragrant rice

Lemon chicken
and many more

Stir fry salad for health

Dry curry prawns
and many more

Sweet and sour fish

Or, you may want to start planting chili for your own consumptions:

Increasing Chili Yield
The number of chili pods borne by a chili tree will, at one stage, reach its maximum. Therefore;
to increase the yield during this maximum fruiting seasons,......

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