Snipped from NewScientist.com.

I have to admit something. I am obsessed with spicy food. Some may say addicted. I don’t know why, but I always have been. Thai food, Mexican food, Indian food … it doesn’t matter. The hotter the better. Oh, and one more thing. I am never sick … ever. Well, except that silly little meningitis episode I got a long time ago, but that is another story. So, one could ask, “Does all the spicy food lend some assistance to my healthy state of existence?” Umm, good question.

One of my favorite magazines, New Scientist, has tried to answer some questions about this spicy mystery. Capsaicin, “a compound found only in chilli peppers” is the main ingredient to this burning sensation that I have become so addicted to. Now, new research has revealed that the nice euphoric feeling following a spicy meal may not be the only positive about this compound. For some time now, arthritis sufferers have been using it in creams to help subside their joint pain, but this may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Here is a small portion of the article (Sorry, but the site is membership only):

The following year, Bosland travelled to India and tracked down some seeds to a local market. Back at his lab in New Mexico, it took several seasons for Bosland to breed enough chillies for testing. His efforts were rewarded last February when he announced the official notification from Guinness World Records that he had the world’s hottest chilli - coming in at a staggering 1,001,304 Scoville units.

What good is such a scorching chilli? Some researchers think high doses of capsaicin might help treat cancer. In April 2007, a team from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in Pennsylvania reported that they had grafted human pancreatic cancer cells into mice and injected them with capsaicin. The amount was equivalent to a person eating one spicy Indian meal per day. After three to five days of treatment per week, the tumours on the capsaicin-treated mice were about half the size of the tumours on the control mice.

The researchers found that capsaicin induced cell death, or apoptosis, in cancer cells through a variety of mechanisms. Levels of Bax, a protein that triggers apoptosis, were higher in the mice treated with capsaicin. While the cancer cells died, normal human cells were unaffected. The key lies in the mitochondria, says lead researcher Sanjay Srivastava, now at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. When increased levels of Bax move into the mitochondria of cancerous cells, the membrane wall around the mitochondrion weakens, releasing a protein that is soon followed by cell death. Srivastava hopes to begin clinical trials within five years.

Meanwhile, a team from the University of California, Los Angeles, tested mice with prostate cancer. When they were given large doses of capsaicin - equivalent to a human eating 10 habanero peppers three times a week - 80 per cent of the cancer cells died, and the remaining tumours were about one-fifth the size of those of the untreated mice (Cancer Research, vol 66, p 3222). “It wouldn’t be surprising to see an effect overnight,” says lead researcher Phillip Koeffler, director of haematology and oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.