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.

A new study reveals a significant relationship between the amount of omega-6 acids in a man's diet, and the increased risk of developing prostate cancer. In a study conducted at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, human prostate tumors grew twice as quickly when omega-6 acids were introduced into cell cultures.

Omega-6 acids are commonly found in corn oil. In the average American diet, omega-6 rich oils are consumed at levels 25 times greater than the consumption of beneficial oils. Healthy oils are canola oil, olive oil and fish oil. Over the last 60 years, prostate cancer diagnosis has risen at the same levels as the increased usage of omega-6 foods.

In the study, the researchers were interested in discovering how, and why, omega-6 acids affected prostate tumor growth. The researchers were able to determine that omega-6 signals the activation of a dozen inflammatory genes known to be important to cancer growth.