"Chili's Heat Kills Prostate Cancer Cells", Forbes, March 16, 2006,
Link:
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2006/03/16/hscout531595.html

Capsaicin, the component that gives jalapeno peppers their heat, may
also kill prostate cancer cells, a new study suggests.

Initial experiments in cancer cells and mice show that capsaicin causes
prostate cancer cells to undergo a kind of suicide. Researchers
speculate that, in the future, pills containing capsaicin might be used
as therapy to prevent prostate cancer's return.

According to their report, capsaicin caused almost 80 percent of
prostate cancer cells in the mice to die. In addition, prostate cancer
tumors treated with capsaicin were about one-fifth the size of tumors
in untreated mice.

"Capsaicin inhibits the growth of human prostate cancer cell in Petri
dishes and mice," said lead researcher Dr. H. Phillip Koeffler,
director of hematology and oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and
a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Based on the findings, Koeffler believe the next step is a trial to see
if it works in patients with prostate cancer.

The report appears in the March 15 issue of Cancer Research.

Capsaicin probably has several effects, Koeffler said. Most noticeable
is its effect in blocking NF-kappa Beta, a molecular mechanism that
promotes cancer cell growth, he noted.

In addition, capsaicin also was effective against leukemia, and might
be effective in slowing or preventing the growth of other cancers as
well, he added.

But it's still too early to reach for the chili sauce, Koeffler said.

"I am not recommending that people increase their consumption of
peppers," he said. "Our calculation is that you would have to eat 10
habanera peppers three times a week, which would be equivalent to the
amount of capsaicin we gave to the mice."

The researcher believes capsaicin could someday gain a place in
adjuvant prostate cancer therapy. For example, it might be used after
prostate surgery to kill cancer cells in patients whose blood PSA
levels start to rise, indicating the presence of tumors too small to be
seen, he said.

The study does highlight the crossover that can occur between
conventional and alternative therapies. "We should take note of herbal
medicines and then use modern-day techniques to find what the active
compounds are and bring them into clinical trials," Koeffler said.

One expert thinks it's too early to know if capsaicin will ever be an
effective prostate cancer treatment, however.

"Since large amounts of capsaicin have never been given to people, we
don't know what the side effects might be," cautioned Dr. Len
Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer at the American Cancer
Society. "We don't know about the right dose or anything."

Lichtenfeld believes that any trial should be done in patients who are
not responsive to other standard therapies. "We are ways away from a
clinical trial," he said. "We need more basic research before we start
treating patients."

Another expert concurred.

"This study does not prove that capsaicin will prove effective in the
treatment of prostate cancer in humans," said Dr. David L. Katz, an
associate professor of public health and director of the Prevention
Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "Nor does it
tell us that eating peppers rich in the substance will help prevent
such cancer, or forestall its growth. But it provides a compelling
argument for clinical study of capsaicin in human prostate cancer to
put these questions to the test."

"This paper should serve to remind us that herbal remedies and
pharmacotherapy are often of common origins, differing only in our
capacity to identify, purify and package the active ingredients," Katz
said. "This work suggests that the conventional medical community
should turn a discriminating eye, rather than a jaded eye, toward
time-honored herbal treatments. Many will doubtless prove ineffective
when put to the test of high-quality research. But some will pass that
test, and we must meticulously distinguish between them."