Several weeks ago, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA researchers reported that capsaicin in habanero peppers had the power to drive prostate cancer cells to commit suicide.

In a new and different study done by University of Pittsburgh Medical Center researchers, capsaicin is reported to have the same cancer-fighting properties in preventing or slowing the growth of pancreatic cancer tumors. Capsaicin appears to signal pancreatic cancer cells to follow pathways leading to their own cellular death too. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth-leading cause of cancer death in the United States and is one of the most aggressive cancers, with an extremely poor prognosis.

All in all, it is beginning to look like cancer cells do not seem able to stand the heat, but if you can, chili peppers might be a good idea to include in your cancer prevention diet. There is a magazine devoted to all the varieties of the chili pepper, called Chili Pepper, that includes recipes for every meal of the day, including appetizers and desserts.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and UCLA researchers report habanero peppers have the power to drive prostate cancer cells to commit suicide. Capsaicin, the compound that puts the hot in habanero peppers, and can cause a diner's forehead to break out in a beaded sweat, is responsible for inducing the death of prostate cancer cells.

“Capsaicin had a profound anti-proliferative effect on human prostate cancer cells in culture,” said Dr. Sören Lehmann, visiting scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the UCLA School of Medicine. “It also dramatically slowed the development of prostate tumors formed by those human cell lines grown in mouse models.”

Capsaicin caused approximately 80 percent of prostate cancer cells growing in mice to follow the pathways leading to cellular death. Prostate cancer tumors treated with capsaicin were about one-fifth the size of tumors in non-treated mice. Depending on capsaicin content, Dr. Lehmann estimates that the dose of pepper extract fed orally to the mice was equivalent to a 200 pound man consuming about three-to-eight fresh habanero peppers a week.