Can pepper capsules cure prostate cancer?

If anyone's interested, here where you can download the actual research article: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/66/6/3222

---

Age: 59, 59 at DX
PSA: 1/20/00 7.9, 7/22/00 3.3, 10/25/01 4.9, 10/19/04 5.1, 9/26/07 5.98, 8/28/08 7.68, 9/23/08 7.36, 10/23/08 8.64, 12/18/08 6.39
Prostate size: 96cc
Biopsy: 11/7/08 Positive 2 of 15 cores, both in rt apex, composite tumor quantity 5% prostate involved, Gleason 7 (3+4), Gleason pattern 4 accounts for 15% of tumor
Stage: T1c

Hi MichGuy,

I read an article similar to this one but not as scientific. I also read the abstract of a more scientific article published in a medical journal. This article appears to be a bit better than either of my previous references. I take two pepper capsules a day as a result. Figured I would try it. So far no gastrointestinal issues from the pepper. The only thing that gives me pause is that it has only been tested in mice. There seems to be a lot of things like this that work in mice. Sometimes I wish I was a mouse too. Until I got this PCa I had no idea how interested humans are in the health of mice.

Anyway, thanks for the post and the link.

Take care,

Don

---

Diagnosed 04/10/08

Yeah Tony I have always loved spicy foods. I grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Ohio and spiced up all my pastas and pizzas. Then I moved out here and can eat hotter mexican foods than near all mexicans I know. Back to lycopene and all that early Italian sauces I've taken multivitamins with lycopene since it first was added. Thus so much for magic food and supplements. But I still take Omega 3 fish capsules and multivitamins (neither are exorbitantly priced) insisting they have folic acid in them over folate. But maybe those too will be discredited in time like selinium, mangosteen etc.. I think many people have needlessly spent dollars on expensive urine and gas. Green tea is an excellent antioxidant but you need to drink more than most people do. Personally I drink more black than green tea, but I never drank coffee. Will that make any difference? I doubt it. But still people will spend hopeful dollars on maybe just maybe a magic bullet. Just don't count on them... skeptical Ziggy

---

Diagnosed 11/08/07

I will just be blunt for one, lol, I think the entire pepper theory is just snake oil in another form. People are always looking for some obvious miracle cure that it right under their nose all that time, and someone just happens to get turned on to it. While hardly perfect, we live in an age of great medical treatments and improvements, a lot of good medications out there, I am more inclined to stick to the tried and proven. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a healthy diet and lifestyle, the amount of needed health care in this country would drop drastically if everyone ate less, ate better, and exercised, and didn't smoke. Wouldn't stop eveyrthing bad from happening, but it would sure help. Excuse my rant.

David in SC

---

Age 56, 56 at DX

realziggy, i have nothing against peppers or spicy food, due to the radiation i had back in 2000, it left my mouth and throat incapable of eating anything remotely spicy. I eat all my salads dry without dressing, never use ketcup, mustard, most other condiments. I never add salt to anything. I miss being able to eat a big hot plate of nachos and cheese.

David in SC

---

Age 56, 56 at DX

Good post, bob,
There are things that can and do work well. Peppers and such maybe on the horizon of a successful drug. I have no doubt that there are hidden secrets in nature that can cure cancers. Like you say, we are supplimenting way more than ever before. Unfortunately there is way more cancer found than ever before as well. Relation? Probably not. But it could be just as easily. I asked my oncologist why Pacific Rim Asians had less prostate cancer percentages and if he thought diet was the primary reason. He wasn't buying it much. He told me to remember that PCa is largely heredity. But that it could also easily be other things in our environments ~ pesitcides, hair gel, deoderant, even the plastic in a toothbrush or water bottle that trigger prostate cancer. You have to look at everything different in the socialeconomics of the Pacific Rim, not just diet, in order to prove that anything is a cause.

On topic to MichGuys post ~ We still lack a scientific study on capsaicin of its effectiveness in humans, propper introduction to our systems, drug interactions, and what it's side effects are when delivered in high doses. We have seen hundreds of lawsuits against drug companies for releasing drugs that killed people, but at least they were held to some standard before releasing a treatment protocol. Taking a study like this and slamming the suppliment, then a couple months later declaring to the world you have been cured? For me, the bells and whistles went off when he declared he had another biopsy to prove it. Doctors will tell you that needle biopsies of the prostate are less than 65% effective at finding cancer in the first place. So no doctor would do another prostate biopsy after they already found it once. What good would it do to even get a negative second biopsy? I know the doctor wouldn't say, "well how about that, your cured" or even "Whatever it is you're doing, keep doing it, that's enough for me". They might say "It's ok if you don't want to do anything right now. But we should monitor this like a hawk searching for a mouse". I think Ziggy is the only member at this site that has a legitimate reason for additional prostate biopsies after the finding of a positive result. Any other TFT Cryo guys will too. Sounds like HIFU guys might as well be getting multiple biopsies in the future. When you understand these modalities, you can understand why.

Tony

---

Age 46 (44 when Dx)