Study Finds Chili Peppers Ease the Pain

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


    Philadelphia - When burning pain lingers months after surgery,
doctors say there is a red-hot cure: chili peppers.
    In a study, an ointment made with capsaicin, the stuff that makes
chili peppers hot, brought relief to patients with tender surgical
scars, apparently by short-circuiting the pain.
    Patients undergoing major cancer surgery, such as mastectomies or
lung operations, are sometimes beset by sharp, burning pain in their
surgical scars that lasts for months, even years. The condition, seen in
about 5 percent or fewer of all cases, results from damage to the nerves
during surgery.
     Ordinary painkillers don't work, and the standard treatment is
antidepressant drugs, which often have powerful side effects. So in
search of a better treatment, doctors tested a cream made with capsaicin
(cap-SAY-uh-sin) on 99 patients who typically had suffered painful
surgical scars at least six months.
    Patients preferred capsaicin over a placebo cream by 3-to-1.
    "The therapy clearly worked," said Dr. Charles L. Loprinzi, head of
medical oncology at the Mayo Clinic. He released his data yesterday at
the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Oncology.
    The only side effects were redness, burning and an occasional cough
when the patient caught a whiff of the ointment. Capsaicin is believed
to work by blocking substance P, a natural chemical that carries pain
impulses between nerve cells.
    That same blocking effect may explain why people who eat hot peppers
frequently develop a tolerance to the burn.





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