"Cayenne Pepper for IBS and Indigestion"
Nearly 50 million Americans come down
with food poisoning every year.
Over a hundred thousand are hospitalized
and thousands die every year
just because of something they ate.
If they had ordered something different
or chose something else at the grocery store
they or their loved one would be alive today.
But in the vast majority of cases
food poisoning manifests as little more
than a case of "stomach flu",
a few days of pain, vomiting, diarrhea and then it's gone.
So what's the big deal?
Well, as described in the recent editorial
in the American Journal of Gastroenterology,
in many cases that acute infection can trigger
a chronic postinfectious functional gastrointestinal disorder
that can last for years or even forever,
the two most common of which are
irritable bowel syndrome and functional dyspepsia,
which means chronic indigestion.
Up to 10% of people stricken with Salmonella, or E. coli,
or Campylobacter are left with irritable bowel syndrome.
The thought is that the transitory inflammation
during the infection could lead to subtle
but permanent changes in the structure and function
of the digestive system,
causing the lining of the gut to become hyper-sensitized.
How do they determine if someone's rectum is hypersensitive, though?
Innovative Japanese researchers developed a device
to deliver repetitive rectal painful distention,
basically a half quart balloon
hooked up to a fancy bicycle pump
that was lubricated with olive oil,
inserted and inflated
until they couldn't stand the pain anymore.
And those with irritable bowel
had significantly lower pain threshold,
significantly less "rectal compliance".
Healthy people felt the pain where you'd expect
to feel the pain with effectively
with a balloon animal in your behind,
but many with IBS also experienced abdominal pain,
with the same procedure
indicating a hypersensitivity of the entire gut wall.
Well, if that's the problem,
how can we desensitize the gut?
We learned in the cluster headache story
about the ability of hot pepper compounds
to deplete pain fibers of substance P,
a neurotransmitter the body uses to transmit pain.
It's bad enough to have to rub
hot peppers up your nose,
where do you have to stick them for irritable bowel?
Thankfully researchers chose the oral route.
"Conclusions: The results of this preliminary study"
"indicate that the chronic administration"
"of red pepper powder in IBS patients"
"with enteric-coated pills"
"was significantly more effective than placebo"
"in decreasing the intensity of abdominal pain and bloating"
"and was considered by the patients more effective"
"than placebo" suggesting a novel way
of dealing with this frequent and distressing functional disease.
Though after the 48 million cases
of annual food poisoning,
10% may end up with IBS,
even more may end up with chronic dyspepsia—
chronic indigestion.
How do peppers work against that?
Can't use whole peppers because
then you couldn't double blind a fake placebo pepper.
But if you give capsules of red pepper powder
to folks suffering from chronic indigestion,
about one and a half teaspoons a day worth,
and compare to placebo,
within a month their overall symptoms dropped,
including their stomach pain
and bloated feelings... less nausea too.
The frequently prescribed drug propulcid
worked almost as good as the red pepper powder,
and was considered generally well tolerated...
that is, until it killed you.
Propulcid was pulled from the market
after causing dozens of deaths.