Health & Wellness
Yes, the effect of cayenne pepper on your body is dramatic, even literally instant and no more so than with the heart. Cayenne pepper's benefits is one of the things that brought you to this article so now let's discuss the phenomenal healing properties of cayenne pepper with the human heart.
Dr. John Christopher, the famed natural herbalist, was persecuted relentlessly by the government for his practice of herbal medicine all the while assisting patients in curing heart disease, cancer, tuberculosis, infertility, rheumatism, leukemia, and every other incurable under the sun.
One of his greatest stories in his long career was how he could instantly stop a heart attack if he could get the patient to drink a glass of warm cayenne water. He said, "A teaspoon of cayenne should bring the patient out of the heart attack."
The late, famed herbalist Dr. John Christopher was nicknamed "Dr. Cayenne" because he was constantly recommending the healing powers of cayenne, the substance found in chili peppers that produces a sensation of heat. He especially advocated using it for cardiovascular health and even made the claim that doses of cayenne could stop heart attacks in progress. Now science has come up with proof cayenne does have a remarkable ability to help the heart. University of Cincinnati (UC) scientists have found that capsaicin, the main component of cayenne, may literally stop a heart attack in its tracks when applied topically.
New research just published in the journal Circulation concludes that a common, over-the-counter pain salve containing capsaicin rubbed on the skin during a heart attack could serve as a cardiac-protectant - reducing or even preventing damage to the heart. The researchers found an amazing 85 percent reduction in cardiac cell death when capsaicin was used. This is the most powerful cardioprotective effect ever recorded, according to Keith Jones, PhD, a researcher in the UC department of pharmacology and cell biophysics.
Dr. Jones and his research team applied capsaicin to specific skin locations in mice that caused reactions in the nervous system. Specifically, sensory nerves in the skin were triggered to activate what the scientists call cellular "pro-survival" pathways in the heart. The result? The heart muscle was protected from injury.
The researchers also found that a tiny incision made in the abdomen of the lab rodents triggered an 81 percent reduction in the death of heart cells. "Both this and the capsaicin effect are shown to work through similar neurological mechanisms," Dr. Jones explained. "This is a form of remote cardioprotection, using a skin stimulus that activates cardioprotection long before the blocked coronary artery is opened."
Dr. Jones is currently working in collaboration with cardiologist Neal Weintraub, MD, director of UC's cardiovascular diseases division, and other clinicians to test capsaicin's heart protective abilities in people. "Topical capsaicin has no known serious adverse effects and could be easily applied in an ambulance or emergency room setting well in advance of coronary tissue death," Dr. Jones said in a media statement. "If proven effective in humans, this therapy has the potential to reduce injury and/or death in the event of a coronary blockage, thereby reducing the extent and consequences of heart attack."
Reader Comments
Outlaw its use or denigrate its use as a useful whole food. Develop a "drug" that sells for some exhorbant price and only by perscription, market it in media by explaining how every family should have this miracle drug that stops a heart attack in its tracks. Use lots of scare tackics and scenes of a heart attack victims miraculously getting up and walking away after being administered the drug. Of course, show the victims that used plain old Cayenne Pepper tea as only recovering partially or not at all. Bingo.....sweet money, money, money flows into the coffers of the big pharmaceutical giants.
With omega 3 fish oil they made it into some stupid prescription drug with a commercial showing a laboratory underwater. Pharma commercials make me sick.
For every thing there is an exception ,same for these chili pepper,pepper all that contains "Capsaicin",may lead to
a type of allergy,one can not imagine .It makes one so hungry,one keeps on eating ,adding Kg's after Kg' to your weight.But once you stop completely,with in 24 hours one starts loosing weight.So I feel that researchers need to give a thought to this.Apart from weight other symptoms are,acidity,burping,aging skin ,obesity are a few other problems.Hope inspite of saving the heart....if some one does some research it would help a lot of people who are not aware of this.
will we see cayenne removed from the shelves because it has a physiological effect?