Spicy discovery may change the future of cancer treatment forever

Can a hot chili pepper cure cancer?

What do breasts, a rock band and science have in common?

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Red Hot Chili Peppers are a popular rock band but those aren't the chili peppers scientists are excited about.

Scientists from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany discovered an ingredient derived from on of the most popular spicy chilis in the world can destroy breast cancer cells.

If the popular chili can destroy breast cancer cells, why is breast cancer still around?

Simply put, the active ingredient, capsaicin, doesn't interact with the cells when eaten, inhaled or injected. It must be pulled from the chili and placed in a pill or other drug engineered specifically to target cancer cells.

According to their findings, which have been published in the Oxford Journal of the National Cancer Institute,  capsaicin has been repressing the growth of cancerous cells in both mice and humans.

The spicy ingredient also switches on specialized channels encompassing the cancer cells, which results in their death.

Scientists have seen evidence of other cancers responding the same way when confronted with capsaicin.

According to the Mirror, Dr. Lea Weber wrote in the Breast Cancer-Targets and Therapy journal to say: "Capsaicin is capable of inducing apoptosis (cell death) and inhibiting cancer cell growth in many different types of cancer, for example, osteosarcoma, colon, and pancreatic cancer cells, while normal cells remained unharmed."

Current methods to eradicate cancer, such as chemotherapy, is unable to target only cancerous cells, resulting in extreme side effects. Should the capsaicin prove successful, cancer patients may be able to leave chemotherapy in the past as they take simple pills to eliminate the disease.

How it works

When capsaicin reaches a cancer cell, it attaches itself to the cell's membrane then turns on a receptor called TRPV1.

TRPV1 is able to control what can move in and out of the cells, such as vitamins and other nutrients.

When capsaicin interacts with TRPV1, cancer cells are forced to work overtime, resulting in apoptotic death, or, simply put, the death of the cell.

As the cells continue to die, tumor growth comes to a halt.

Dr. Weber added the study was specifically to identify how TRPV1 interacts with breast cancer progression.

She and her team conducted the study with the understanding there have yet to be any large-scale comparative studies of TRP channels in different breast cancer progressions.

The result?

The capsaicin did what scientists suspected it would - cancerous cells died off and tumors stopped in their tracks.

Ongoing experiments and study are required before any medication becomes available but researchers believe they are on the right path toward a cure for cancer.

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