Scientists Testing Chemicals In Hot Sauce For Anesthesia Purpose

Washington D.C. (AHN) - American scientists are testing the chemicals in hot sauce for their benefits in relieving the pain of surgery.

Ultra-purified version of capsaicin is directly poured into open wounds during knee replacement and a few other highly painful operations as the volunteers are under anesthesia to see its effect in numbing the pain.

Doctors believe that when we bite a hot pepper, our tongue goes numb and if they follow the same procedure in surgeries it might provide the same effect. When surgically exposed nerves are exposed to a high dose of sauce, it will numb them for weeks, so that patients suffer less pain and require fewer narcotic painkillers as they heal.

Eske Aasvang, a pain specialist in Denmark told the Associated Press, "We wanted to exploit this numbness." Research shows that capsaicin targets key pain-sensing cells in a unique way. Chili peppers have been used to relieve pain since long time and heat-inducing capsaicin creams are available in a drugstore for aching muscles.

In hopes of developing epidurals that wouldn't confine women to bed during childbirth, researchers at Harvard University are mixing capsaicin with other anesthetics. They also hope to use it in developing epidurals for dental injections that don't numb the whole mouth.

In an attempt to see the numbing effects a capsaicin cousin that is 1,000 times more potent, the scientists at the National Institutes of Health are planning to begin testing it in advanced cancer patients.

According to AP reports, capsaicin binds to the receptor of the nerve cells that sense a type of long-term throbbing pain bear a receptor, or gate, called TRPV1. It opens it to enter only those pain fibers and not other nerves responsible for other kinds of pain or other functions such as movement.

These so-called C neurons also sense heat from capsaicin's burn. The numbness is caused when TRPV1 opens, letting extra calcium inside the cells until the nerves become overloaded.

The major experiments which are underway include Anesiva's specially purified capsaicin, called Adlea, Standard lidocaine injections with capsaicin and a capsaicin cousin called resiniferatoxin in advanced cancer patients whose pain no longer is relieved by opioids.