consciouseating
sPiCe oF LiFe
Sizzling Hot
Healthy Peppers
by Amber Lanier Nagle
H
abanero, banana wax, jalapeno and other members of
the chile pepper family have added a kick of flavor to
otherwise bland food for hundreds of years. These spicy dy-
namos not only make our tongues sizzle and our faces sweat,
they also deliver an array of health benefits.
The hot, hotter and scorching sensation of capsaicin, found
primarily in the seeds and ribs of cayenne peppers, has its own
heat scale. While the amount of this chemical component var-
ies among pepper varieties, the rule is, the more capsaicin, the
more fire in the belly and mouth. Bell peppers are at the bottom
of the Scoville Heat Scale, with zero units, while fiery habane-
ros score around 300,000 units, and pure capsaicin, at the top
of the list, measures a scorching 16 million units.
In recent years, researchers who have studied capsaicin
have surfaced some promising results. Evidently, eating these
spicy treats can help prevent and treat certain types of can-
cer, decrease and alleviate pain and help control weight.
Fight Cancer
In India, Mexico and other countries where hot pep-
pers are commonly used in traditional cuisine, cancer rates
are relatively low, according to the Globocan 2002 data-
base. This correlates with the results of a study conducted
on mice genetically modified with human prostate cancer
cells. Research by the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive
Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in collabo-
ration with University of California, Los Angeles, demon-
strated that the pepper extract not only killed approximately
80 percent of the cancer cells, but also dramatically curbed
the growth of remaining tumors, which were only one-fifth
the size of those in untreated mice.
42 Broward County
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