Chilli Muscle Rub

Chilli Products To Relieve Pain

Could Chilli Pepper Relieve Pain?

Dr Paddy Clarke, who’s a Pain Consultant at the Gloucestershire and Worcestershire Royal Hospitals uses Chilli Muscle Cream as his secret weapon.

Currently King’s College, London is carrying out a research project on harnessing the heat in chilli peppers and adapting it to combat inflammation in arthritis.

Their hope is that it will lead to a drug being manufactured, incorporating the established pain relieving effects of capsaicin creams in a tablet form.  A spokesperson for the Arthritis Research Campaign, which is funding the research said: "We welcome any new initiatives to help reduce the pain of arthritis. "We know that Chilli Peppers (capsaicin) has a pain relieving effect when used in a cream form, so it makes sense to try and harness its anti-inflammatory properties into a tablet.

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New research to harness the effectiveness of chilli peppers to treat arthritis – without the burning sensation

A team of researchers in London are to investigate how capsaicin, the hot substance found in chilli peppers, works in combating inflammation in arthritis.

Researchers at the King’s College, London, led by Professor Susan Brain, awarded funding over two years of £127,000 from the Arthritis Research Campaign, are hoping to harness the effects of capsaicin to relieve arthritic pain - without the burning side effects of chilli peppers.

The ultimate aim is to develop a new type of anti-inflammatory painkiller for people with arthritis, who face serious side effects from long-term use of existing drugs.

“Pain from arthritic joints has serious effects on quality of life, and the use of anti-inflammatory pain killers can be associated with adverse side effects,” explained Professor Brain, Professor of Pharmocology at Guy’s Campus. “We know that the activation of a mechanism called TRPV1 on pain-sensitive nerves is involved in arthritis models. However, little is known of mechanisms that link the inflammatory and pain-sensitive components.

“TRPV1 is stimulated by capsaicin, which is found in extracts from chilli peppers. Capsaicin has been used for many treatments including rheumatism, in folk medicine. There are also creams available that include capsaicin and are applied to the skin to treat the aches and pains, but they are associated with a burning sensation.

“This project  is designed to learn more precisely how capsaicin works to combat the effects of one of the best-known inflammatory substances, TNF-alpha, and in turn work towards the possibility that agents without the burning side effects of chilli peppers may be useful in the treatment of arthritis.”

Although the research is still in its early stages, the team at the Vascular Biology and Inflammation Group in KCL’s Cardiovascular Division, are hopeful that their work could lead to new targets for anti-inflammatory drug development.