In all researches conducted with chili, capsaicin extract from red chili is used. Capsaicin is a fantastic health stimulant. Many such researches are carried out to ascertain the much desired anti- carcinogenic effects. Here are the findings from one of the many such researches, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research held at the
Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif., "Our results demonstrate that :

Capsaicin is a potent anticancer agent, induces apoptosis or programmed
cell death in cancer cells and produces no significant damage to normal pancreatic cells, indicating its potential use as a novel chemotherapeutic agent for pancreatic cancer,"
said Dr. Srivastava, Ph.D., lead investigator and assistant professor, department of pharmacology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Other findings, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles also signal an encouraging result. Accordingly

“Capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture,"
"It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models," he said.

These posed as very encouraging news to treatment of cancers. In particular concerns are prostate cancer, the most common cancer among US male gender; and pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive cancers with an extremely poor prognosis and low survival rates.

Chili, pepper or capsicum is a very rich source of antioxidants. The antioxidants in our normal diets are vitamin C, vitamin E, polyphenols and carotenoids. Chili contains seven times more vitamin C than orange.

Free radicals are very unstable and reactive cells as they are 'hungry for electrons'. They attack normal cells in the body in order to obtain these electrons. The deprived cells, now being ripped of their own electrons, in turn attack other normal cells. This may ultimately lead to a chain reaction,
resulting in the cascading formation of abnormally reactive cells, or cancerous cells.

Antioxidants like C and E protect the body against these destructive effects of free radicals. They destroy the free radicals by donating these much sought after electrons; thus converting them into inactive cells.
In other words, antioxidants breaks up  the chain formation of abnormal cancerous cells.

"Although many such experiments suggest that pepper extracts of capsaicin can help treat cancer in animals, much more work needs to be done before capsaicin can be used as a treatment for humans with prostate cancer."