Eating World's Hottest Pepper Sparks Brain Disorder, Thunderclap Headaches (arstechnica.com) 155
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Extremely hot peppers don't just blister your mouth and bum -- they can also spark fiery havoc in your brain, according to a report published Monday in BMJ Case Reports. An otherwise healthy 34-year-old man developed a blood-flow disorder in his brain and suffered several debilitating "thunderclap" headaches after entering a hot pepper eating contest, U.S. doctors reported. The man had managed to get down a Carolina Reaper pepper, which in 2013 earned the title of the world's hottest chili by Guinness World Records.
The searing pepper didn't sit well in the chili-eating contestant. Immediately after slaying a Reaper, the man began dry heaving and developed pain in his neck and the back of his skull. That morphed into a diffuse, painful headache. Over the next few days, he experienced thunderclap headaches at least twice -- but likely more, he just couldn't recall exactly. Thunderclap headaches are severe, sudden, with quick pains that strike like a clap of thunder rumbling through your skull. They tend to peak within 60 seconds and can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, altered mental state, seizures, and fever. Their stormy aches can be a sign of serious problems, like bleeding in the brain, a brain infection, or a cerebrospinal fluid leak. The pain was excruciating enough that the man went to the emergency room. But doctors didn't find any immediate problems with him to explain the episodes. He didn't have any slurred speech, loss of vision, neurological deficits, muscle weakness, or tingling. His blood pressure was a little high, but not extremely so, at 134/69 mmHg. Initial CT scans found no problems in his neck and head.
The searing pepper didn't sit well in the chili-eating contestant. Immediately after slaying a Reaper, the man began dry heaving and developed pain in his neck and the back of his skull. That morphed into a diffuse, painful headache. Over the next few days, he experienced thunderclap headaches at least twice -- but likely more, he just couldn't recall exactly. Thunderclap headaches are severe, sudden, with quick pains that strike like a clap of thunder rumbling through your skull. They tend to peak within 60 seconds and can be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, altered mental state, seizures, and fever. Their stormy aches can be a sign of serious problems, like bleeding in the brain, a brain infection, or a cerebrospinal fluid leak. The pain was excruciating enough that the man went to the emergency room. But doctors didn't find any immediate problems with him to explain the episodes. He didn't have any slurred speech, loss of vision, neurological deficits, muscle weakness, or tingling. His blood pressure was a little high, but not extremely so, at 134/69 mmHg. Initial CT scans found no problems in his neck and head.
Peppers are very good for you (Score:5, Informative)
All varieties of pepper are nutrient-rich, and the heat will boost the metabolism a bit helping control weight, provide pain relief, help manage diabetes, and directly fights prostate cancer.
Don't give up on peppers just because overdoing it can cause harm.
Just don't overdo it.
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:4, Insightful)
best advice for everything - don't overdo it.
drinking too much water can kill you.
doesn't mean we all should suddenly stop drinking water.
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:5, Insightful)
All varieties of pepper are nutrient-rich, and the heat will boost the metabolism a bit helping control weight, provide pain relief, help manage diabetes, and directly fights prostate cancer.
I fully agree.
Don't give up on peppers just because overdoing it can cause harm.
Just don't overdo it.
Pepper mad scientists overdid it about 2 million scoville units ago. It was nice back when the habanero was king, and people still enjoyed the taste of a good pepper.
Now the pepper world has morphed into the food equivalent of Jackass.
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:5, Informative)
I like that ghost peppers can be smoked/dried/roasted and still have substantial heat left. I don't use them fresh. Habaneros are about the hottest thing I'll use fresh, and even then I more often go for seranos, as you've got more control.
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I am partial to that grand-daddy of hot pepper cuisines - the Tabasco pepper, a cultivar of Capsicum frutescens. Most hot peppers are a different species, Capsicum annuum. The Tabasco pepper, like Tabasco Sauce (the first hot sauce ever marketed), has a nice sharp clean bite, then a quick fade - no lingering burning.
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:4, Interesting)
Much like Vanilla Extract or the variety of other extracts. A Ghost Pepper can be used to give heat to a dish, but its small size will not bring pepper flavor to it. Eating raw Ghost peppers, is like eating baking chocolate, or drinking a shot of Vanilla Extract or Vinegar. Unpleasant by itself but used in the right amounts it adds flavor and/or changes the chemical composition of the food to make it palatable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
...except that baking chocolate is pretty tasty if you like dark chocolate.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Some of the hotter ones are fucking delicious, in moderation. Extreme moderation. Rather than deal with the peppers themselves, check out some of the hot sauces from Heatonist. Use them very, very sparingly, and you'll be pleasantly surprised by how good they are. I've lightly dosed a pork roast with some of the hottest ones there and slow roasted it, and it was stunning.
Re: (Score:2)
Ghost pepper has its uses, like making a hot dip from sour cream. Milder (and I use that term loosely) peppers tend to have the heat disappear unless you use so much that the pepper taste overpowers everything else.
Also, ghost pepper flakes, used sparingly, is excellent for sprinkling on barbecued vegetables and pizza. You get bites that taste hotter than others, which makes for a more interesting meal than when every bite tastes the same. Two flakes per pizza slice is enough.
Then there's vinegar-free gh
Re: (Score:2)
yeah, dairy has the unfortunate side effect of neutralizing capcaicin -- gotta use it pretty much straight away or else you run into what you described =/
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If its about laying off of the insanity chillis, Im way ahead of you.
Re: (Score:3)
It's much the same with any food or drink. If it's something known to be safe for consumption, don't go to extremes with it and you'll be fine.
If you drink enough water in a short period, it will poison you and you will die. In no way does that mean you should stop drinking water.
If you're someone who likes sour tastes, don't go creating the ultimate sour taste beyond anything ever seen before and expect it to continue to be just as safe as a lemon.
Re:Peppers are very good for you (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
There are so many underappreciated varieties. Filius Blue peppers are typically grown as an ornamental plant, but mildly hot yet extremely flavorful, perfect for salads.
sola dosis facit venenum (Score:2)
Don't give up on peppers just because overdoing it can cause harm. Just don't overdo it.
"The dose makes the poison"
- - Paracelsus (aka Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Animal abuse, you should be ashamed.
Re: (Score:1)
Weird, I would have assumed any digestive problems would be associated with the sensitivity to capsashin.
I assume that's what causes mine after too many peppers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Successful troll is successful.
Re: (Score:3)
Summary cuts off too early (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Summary cuts off too early (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Summary cuts off too early (Score:4, Funny)
you often have to sign a waiver for as well as topical pain relief creams (DO NOT TASTE THESE).
Having lived through the Merciless Peppers of Quetzalacatenango grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum, I am ready for the Capsagel Challengem dude!
Or is it brah? I have trouble remembering things since the Tide Pods last week...Can't even figure out where my condoms have gone.
Re:Summary cuts off too early (Score:4, Funny)
on top of the usual exit wounds
Today you fancy yourself a fire breathing dragon!
Tomorrow the Rocket Maaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting you referred to dragons in your post:
https://www.livescience.com/59... [livescience.com]
Re: (Score:2)
If you think capsaicin is harsh, try resiniferatoxin [wikipedia.org]. Activates the same receptor as capsaicin, but is 500-1000 times more potent. 16 billion scoville units ;) They call it a toxin for a reason. The threshold between pain symptoms and toxic symptoms in chemicals that activate TRPV1 is high, but not unlimited.
Re: (Score:3)
To put that into perspective:
* A half teaspoon of resiniferatoxin mixed into a two-litre bottle of water will make it hotter than the same two litre bottle full of pure capsaicin.
* A kilogram of bell peppers, soaked in a solution with a single drop of resiniferatoxin, would be rendered as hot as a kilogram of ghost peppers.
* Six olympic swimming pools of resiniferatoxin could render Lake Erie as hot as a mild pepper, and 30 could make it as hot as a jalapeno. Given that the total syn
Re: (Score:2)
You really got to mix units didn't you?
Empirical Teaspoons to Metric Liter
Metric Kilogram to a suggestive single drop.
Olympic swimming pools to a Lake Erie
What would one TOS USS Enterprise NCC-1701 do to the lava in Mt. Doom?
Re: (Score:2)
Teaspoons are well defined, 4.92892ml.
Drop is a unit in pharmacy equivalent to 0,05ml, not a "suggestive single drop"
An olympic swimming pool with a nominal depth of 2m is 250000l. Lake Erie is 480 cubic kilometers.
Resiniferatoxin is 1,35g/ml and water is 1g/ml, for where it matters.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Since Google search started to handle mixed-unit calculations flawlessly, I just input any unit at hand, and spare my worry for whether I trust the numbers in the numbers in the first place.
The original reason for avoiding mixed unit calculations was that it was so easy to screw something up handling the conversions manually.
Now I just cut and paste whatever formula I entered into Google search, so if necessary I can repeat or otherwise verify the calculation later.
There were actually a couple of weird edge
Re: (Score:2)
* A kilogram of bell peppers, soaked in a solution with a single drop of resiniferatoxin, would be rendered as hot as a kilogram of ghost peppers.
From a cooking perspective, bell peppers are notoriously bad at soaking up other flavors. What kind of solution would make the bell pepper cells permeable, allowing it to soak up the substance, without causing other major taste changes? I'm only asking because I'd love to infuse flavor into otherwise bland peppers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Shouldn't be surprising. Picture eating three orders of magnitude as much pure capsaicin. I don't think you'd survive that either.
Capsaicin is for amateurs. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's called "Hunan hands" in the culinary world (probably among other things). The first time I made hot pepper jelly out of good old cayennes I found out the hard way that you should either wear gloves or QUICKLY wash your hands before the juices penetrate your skin.
The one time I bought ghost pepper sauce a few drops -- drops -- rendered a dish I was trying it in inedible. By anyone except macho types trying to prove that they can love pain. I simply disposed of the bottle and will never go that way ag
Re: (Score:2)
One case... (Score:2, Insightful)
is hardly evidence. This is speculation, not science.
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
I pretty sure the brain disorder is wanting to put that shit in your mouth in the first place.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps.
I grow Carolina Reapers. I do not eat Carolina Reapers.
Well, I mean, I do eat them: I blend them with a lot of salt and plenty of strong vinegar and freeze them in squeeze-bottles until it is time to consume. The mixture seems to keep indefinitely, once thawed, under normal refrigeration.
I've also fermented them and done the same sort of thing with them, which produces very different taste.
The sauce is a crowd pleaser and it is very tasty. But despite being made from the hottest of peppers, I've had it described as being "surprisingly mild." In sauce form, it's easy to use tiny amounts.
But I don't eat them. I've chopped up tiny slivers of one and put it on a baked potato (with plenty of butter, sour cream, and cheese), many times, and I ate those potatoes, but I don't just -- you know -- eat them as they are.
Eating these peppers as they are is a really fucking stupid thing to do. Then-girlfriend's much-younger then-high-school-aged brother liked to take them to school with him; I encouraged him not to. He used them as dare material. I feel bad for those poor bastards.
These fuckers are mean. When I had a surplus of some of these and some other scary-hot peppers one year (more than I could bottle), I tried to give some to the Asian grocery store next door who was always kind to me, just a basket on the counter of peppers for folks to -- you know -- just take for free. "Too hot," they said after a couple of days. "Nobody wants these," they added when they gave them back). A bunch of spicey-food-loving Mexicans that my Dad knows also rejected them ("too hot," they said too)..
And yes, it's "all in your head," but the body's reaction to what's in your head can be very damaging to said body.
That all said: I'm lead to wonder if the "thunderclap headaches" in TFA weren't caused directly by the violent retching. The human body is pretty fucking hard on itself when it comes to expelling (what it considers to be) poisons.
Re: (Score:2)
The mixture seems to keep indefinitely, once thawed
So not even bacteria dare to touch it?
Recipe? (Score:2)
I blend them with a lot of salt and plenty of strong vinegar and freeze them in squeeze-bottles until it is time to consume. ... The sauce is a crowd pleaser and it is very tasty.
Sounds fantastic. Can you please give us the recipe, or at least approximate proportions?
Re: Recipe? (Score:2)
Trim woody bits from peppers. Throw in blender. Puree. Add enough vinegar that it smooths out. Add more salt than you think you should, and then put more in. A touch of olive oil can be fun, too, which changes the texture a bit.
That's all. Just peppers, vinegar, and salt. A tiny bit sorks fine when it comes to consumption.
1 pound of peppers produces a bit less than a quart.
Keep refrigerated or you might get botulism and die in one of the shittier wayz imaginable.
Re: Recipe? (Score:2)
Awesome, thanks much. Will be planting peppers here ASAP then.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It depends on quantity. A small amount of habanero doesn't contain more capsaicin than a large amount of jalapeño, but it does have a more fruity flavour. Just make sure you don't touch it when you're chopping it up: that really is pointless masochism.
Re: (Score:2)
When I first bite into a jalapeno the sensation is of an incredible sweetness followed by a spicy burn. It's addictive. I love the taste of jalapenos but habaneros are just hot. I can eat them okay but the flavor isn't there for me. I tried ghost pepper, it's just burn and nothing else at all. I'm not doing a reaper, to hell with that.
Re: Hmm (Score:2)
My mouth was numb, and the next day I wished my asshole was.
Had a good laugh when I read that, thanks!
you're usually not cleverer than nature (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I've heard that birds lack a digestive enzyme that breaks down the seed casings, so any that aren't ground up in the gizzard pass through fertile. Birds also seem to defecate on flat surfaces like bare ground or your car. This tends to grow the plants the birds like to eat near where the roost, and is why the lack of the enzyme is beneficial. Mammals both have the enzyme and feel the heat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wild blueberries (okay, bilberries) grow abundantly here and when they're in season on my land, there's often purple bird droppings full of seeds scattered all over everything that's left outside.
Nutritious fleshy fruits evolved for a reason...
Some plants even appear to have evolved "cheats" in their fruits. For example, there's a number of fruits that contain non-calorific chemicals that are many times sweeter than sugar; some of them are currently being incorporated into commercial products, while others
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe we should heed the signals that thousands, if not millions of years of evolution have given some plants/animals the capability to send, and us the benefit of being able to receive?
The message is "I don't want you to eat me" and it has been received loud and clear. The response is "nom nom nom".
Blisters? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
freeze128 wondered:
I have had lots of hot peppers, but they have NEVER caused me blisters. Is this just a metaphor?
You may have had lots of jalapenos, but Carolina Reapers are a completely different level of hot. Like 900 times hotter [wikipedia.org] than jalapenos.
And, yes, people who are particularly sensitive to capsacin can and do develop contact dermatitis from eating Carolina Reapers ...
Re:Blisters? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, the stuff about hot peppers literally causing physical lesions as if they were thermally hot is folklore. Capsaicin stimulates nerves via the TRPV1 receptor that also responds to heat, and so gives the sensation of burning. It causes no physical changes directly.
As another poster here has noted rare idiosyncratic rashes can occur, but lots of things can cause rashes in some people, it is really an immune system abnormality in the victim.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably not the capsicum that causes the blisters as much as the skins reaction to it.
Well, I eat some pretty hot stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Most days. I have become a big fan of reaper powder sprinkled on stuff. In my experience, the peppers will usually make my headaches (even migraines) go away better than any medicine I've tried, so ymmv...
Grandma was right... (Score:5, Funny)
...when she threw out my music collection.
Red Hot Chili Peppers do rot your brain!
Re: (Score:2)
stupid (Score:1)
It eludes me how people think they can just eat all sorts of crap or risiculous quantities and NOT have a problem. Are you so ignorant of your own body?
You can die by drinking too much water. (Score:1)
Doctor's orders (Score:5, Funny)
PATIENT: It hurts when I do that.
DOCTOR: Stop doing that!
Re: (Score:2)
COPAY: $75
INVOICE: Insurance paid $35, insurance mark-down $300
I don't follow the logic (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Let's define neurotoxin.
Neurotoxins are toxins that are poisonous or destructive to nerve tissue (causing neurotoxicity).[3]
In biology, poisons are substances that cause disturbances in organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when an organism absorbs a sufficient quantity.[1][2]
Neurotoxicity is a form of toxicity in which a biological, chemical, or physical agent produces an adverse effect on the structure or function of the central and/or peripheral nervous system.[1]
What is capsaicin then?
The burning and painful sensations associated with capsaicin result from its chemical interaction with sensory neurons. Capsaicin, as a member of the vanilloid family, binds to a receptor called the vanilloid receptor subtype 1 (TRPV1).[52] First cloned in 1997, TRPV1 is an ion channel-type receptor.[53] TRPV1, which can also be stimulated with heat, protons and physical abrasion, permits cations to pass through the cell membrane when activated. The resulting depolarization of the neuron stimulates it to signal the brain. By binding to the TRPV1 receptor, the capsaicin molecule produces similar sensations to those of excessive heat or abrasive damage, explaining why the spiciness of capsaicin is described as a burning sensation.
It depolarizes your neurons and causes all kinds of effects on your nervous system. That covers both poison and neurotoxicity.
Here's a paper titled "Neurotoxic effect of capsaicin in mammals" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
And here's one titled "Capsaicininduced neuronal degeneration in the brain and retina of preweanling rats" - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.co... [wiley.com]
So if it looks like a neurotoxin, smells like a neurotoxin and acts like a neurotoxin, maybe i
A study of one person? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
You're right.
Here, eat this. For science.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I'm thinking it's pretty hard to get test subjects to eat peppers with military weapons grade capsaicin in them. It would also be pretty obvious to figure out who were the test subject and who were the placebo subjects.
Delikatessen News For Nerds (Score:2)
If if it doesn't matter, it's hot!
So the takeaway here is (Score:2)
Play stupid games... (Score:3)
Stupid hot (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's all about how much tolerance to the heat you've developed.
Grab any random person off the street and feed them a jalapeno and they'll probably have a pretty bad time, and only remember the burn. Have that same person eat spicy food for a few months and they'll probably enjoy snacking on jalapenos for the flavour.
Same with the superhots. Well, probably not snacking on them directly, but maybe mix them into a meal. But biting into a superhot directly would be a vastly different experience for somebody
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Confirmation Bias rears its ugly head again (Score:2)
It looks like Confirmation Bias has reared its ugly head again.
This is an anecdotal, one-time occurrence which has no scientific meaning.
This is likely an allergy this guy has, but unless and until the scientific method is applied, e.g. having a double-blind placebo-controlled study done, the idea that hot peppers can cause brain injury is completely meaningless.
You have to admire (Score:2)
Doing too much of something is bad for you (Score:2)
Whodathunk it? Now excuse me, I'm off to have some nice refreshing water [nbcnews.com].
doctors didn't find any immediate problems with h (Score:2)
The study also forgot... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't reccoment this one to anyone in any amount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Here's the thing! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He is wrong. Take methylmercury for eg. Basically you touch it, your dead.
Or dimethylmercury [wikipedia.org]. If you get one drop on your lab gloves, you're going to die in six months and be convulsing the final months without functioning brain.
Well, for both of those examples, that wouldn't exactly be using it properly, now would it?
Re: Here's the thing! (Score:2)
Re:Here's the thing! (Score:4, Interesting)
Powerful stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Lets eat slugs and the worlds hottest pepper, then go on disability so tax payers can the bills of stupidity.
Or put him in a Matrix, and use the power he generates to mine cryptocurrency to pay down the public debt.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Can we add all those idiots that insist in jumping out of fully functioning planes or strapping themselves underneath cloth contraptions to fly around in the air without any good reason? And of course the imbeciles that climb up mountains despite there being nothing on top they want to get.
Re: (Score:2)
Chemical warfare is bad enough, please don't escalate to biological.
Re: (Score:2)
One of my favorites. I would love to have Groening drawn "space coyote" sketch.
Re: (Score:2)
I have one that I bought off eBay on a lark. I work with automated