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Disability in the News Archive

UCSF Study Suggests Capsaicin Significantly Reduces Debilitating Nerve Pain

San Francisco, CA (BW HealthWire) -- March 2, 1997 -- A UC San Francisco study has found that capsaicin, a derivative of hot chilli peppers, may significantly reduce chronic, debilitating nerve pain associated with a range of diseases when used in high doses.

The study found that seven out of ten patients who suffered from debilitating foot or chest wall pain associated with HIV, diabetes or shingles improved by at least 50 percent after being treated by cream with capsaicin concentrates of five percent to ten percent.  All ten participants reported some pain relief.

The patients, who found no relief from other systemic or topical pain-killers, reported that capsaicin alleviated their pain for up to six to eight months, and allowed them to reduce their intake of medications and increase their daily activites.

"It took away the pain when nothing else would," said Wendye R. Robbins, MD, a UCSF assistant professor of anesthesiology at the UCSG Mount Zion Pain Center and the study's principal investigator.

The study, which will be published in the March 1 issue of Anesthesia and Analgesia, marks the first time capsaicin has been administered in such high concentrations to humans.  It could become the foundation for more widespread use of capsaicin in treating pain related to nerve injuries, a growing focus of the medical and boiscience fields.

"This is one of a lot of new, exciting therapies that are targeting injured nerves in different ways," Robbins said.

Capsaicin has long been used in low dosages, and is widely available in creams containing capsicin concentrations of less than one percent.

Capsaicin in concentrations higher than one percent had not previously been used as a treatment becaue it causes intense burning when applied, a result of capsaicin activating nerves before anaesthetizing them.

In the UCSF study, however, patients were able to tolerate the burning because they were given regional anesthesia before the casaicin was administered.  The role of the anesthesia in promoting the effects of the capsaicin has not been determined.

Patients also took morphine to curb burning in the days following treatment, as the burning could last up to five days.  Though the morphine was not effective in treating the initial pain that caused the patient's suffering, it did successfully treat the pain from burning, Robbins said.  The initial burning was the only side effect of capsaicin treatment identified in the study.

Researchers were concerend that high dosages of capsicin could affect the patients' abilities to sense extreme temperatures and pain, therefore increasing their chances of further injuries.

That concern was not included in the first UCSF capsaicin study.  However, preliminary results of a subsequent study currently under way on the use of high-dose capsaicin indicate the ability to sense temperature and pain is not effected by the treatment, Robbins said.

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