Cayenne Cardiology
A red-hot pepper took care of a life-threatening condition that stumped doctors. Without emotion the cardiologist said, “The treadmill test turned up an abnormality. There’s a problem…The words “abnormality” and “problem” were not what I had hoped to hear. After all (to paraphrase Woody Allen), my heart is my second favorite organ. The doctor reached for a prescription pad. I zoned out as I heard the words “medication…Cardizam…thallium tests…T-waves…reduced activity.” My only thought was, “Is this it? I’m now an old man?” That was in November of I 991. I was 55. Because that was my father’s age when he suffered a series of heart attacks, I had decided it would be smart of me to take a stress test and check the condition of the old ticker. For the most part, I’d been relaxed about the outcome. After all, except for a bout of viral pneumonia in 1972, my health had always been near-perfect. I’d been athletic all my life, usually in better shape in pick-up games than men ten years my junior. I had only been in the hospital once, in 1954, and then only for some cosmetic work on a broken nose. And while I’ve had my weaknesses for wine and pizza, my diet generally has been good. Still, my father’s history pushed me to see the doctor for a complete heart checkup. During my annual birthday physical, I had asked my family physician if he thought the test was a good idea, and he did. He referred me to Dr. Vincent Gilardi, who had an excellent reputation in the area and had done some pioneering research work. I called and made the appointment with Dr. Gilardi. I was totally surprised when I flunked the test. On the treadmill, Dr. Gilardi later told me, I lasted far longer than the typical 55-year-old; my blood pressure behaved properly; for all intents and purposes, nothing appeared dramatically wrong. But there was something erratic about the ST-segments of my EKG, which make up a specific section of that wavy line we’ve all seen in EKG tests. It seems that under heavy exercise, my ST-segments didn’t go back to zero before starting to rise again . On the EKG, they were one millimeter away. I groaned. In lay terms, this meant that some part of my heart muscle wasn’t getting any oxygen when my heart rate was elevated (we got it up to 172 beats a minute). Although Dr. Gilardi was only mildly concerned, he thought the symptom justified a thallium test. The “Dark Spot” This meant going into the lab in the morning and getting an intravenous shot of thallium (a radioactive isotope that illuminates the path of blood through the heart), spending the day in normal activity, and coming back at five o’clock to sit perfectly still for forty minutes on a cold table while a clicking, whirring robotic contraption rotated around me taking 3-D pictures of my heart. I flunked that test, too. Back in his office, Dr. Gilardi showed me the mysterious four-color pictures and pointed out a “blot” near the surface of my heart. It was a “dark spot,” he said, but that was as far as his explanation went. He said neither he nor any of his six associates could determine what the “blot” was. However, he assured me that he was only mildly concerned and that it simply bore watching. He suggested I continue with the beta-carotene that I’d been taking (“although the evidence is soft,” he said) and told me that there was nothing wrong in taking half an aspirin regularly, which I’d also been doing. Then he gave me the diet-and-smoking lecture (though I had quit smoking in 1969). Finally, he encouraged me to come back on my next birthday for another stress test. I should point out that after my pneumonia nineteen years earlier, I had looked into the nutritional aspects of health. I read books by Linus Pauling and others, and these writings convinced me to take a daily dose of 1000 mg of ascorbic acid, 400 units of vitamin E, 10,000 units of emulsified vitamin A, and a high-dose vitamin and mineral formula. Maybe this regimen explained my overall good health, but it evidently wasn’t enough to keep my heart in top order. Medically speaking, it was a long year. I couldn’t get the Essential Muscle in my chest off my mind. In my normal routine, I would play softball, run occasionally, play tennis, chop wood, toss grandsons in the air-things demanding a certain amount of exertion. A normal person my age would engage in these activities without once thinking about his heart-how many times have you rounded first base and thought about your heart as you headed for second? On my next birthday, I flunked the test again. This time, explained Dr. Gilardi, the EKG showed that my ST component turned upward at two millimeters before zero. Also, the “blot” hadn’t changed. “Obviously progressive” was his verdict. He gave me a prescription for Cardizam and cautioned me to let up on the heavy exercise, something I had thought I would never hear. For someone who had always considered himself something of a jock, this was depressing. It was early November. Just before Thanksgiving, I received a book in the mail from my mother-in-law. It was about the benefits of cayenne in preventing and treating cardiovascular disease. The book claimed that the therapeutic agent in cayenne and other hot peppers was the chemical capsaicin, and that it worked wonders for the arteries. I didn’t believe it. The book was loaded with terms like “as many scientists agree…“ and “clinical studies have shown…,” without ever citing which scientists were agreeing or which clinical studies had shown. In medical terms, the author’s personal accounts and his accounts of others’ “recoveries” were strictly anecdotal. For a layman, I had above-average knowledge about science. I had had lots of premed science in college and had even written a book about the work of Dr. Virginia Livingston-Wheeler called The Conquest of Cancer (Franklin-Watts, 1986). And I had worked closely in the 1970s with the Orthomolecular Medical Society (a group of physicians who specialize in nutritional therapy). In other words, I thought I’d learned how to tell the difference between flimsy nutritional claims and legitimate ones. However, I made a purely unscientific and arbitrary decision. I started taking a dose (100,000 unit potency) of cayenne twice a day, one capsule before lunch and one before dinner. Sometimes I took it only once a day. I had always, on occasion, eaten hot and spicy foods, so I thought that it couldn’t hurt to try it. I had been taking the cayenne for two months when Dr. Gilardi invited me to an experimental program being conducted by a San Diego pharmaceutical company. In the program, the company’s new drug, arbutamine, was introduced intravenously to a volunteer subject and, while the subject lay perfectly still on the table, his heart rate was increased (using insulin). Because the patient was still, a perfectly clear echocardiogram could be taken. Consultations with the test program director were required. My wife and I were given a careful explanation of the details and risks (from stimulating the heart) of the experimental test. We talked it over, and I volunteered. The test itself was a miserable experience. Crowded into a room not more than fifteen by fifteen feet were three representatives of the pharmaceutical company, Dr. Gilardi and two of his assistants, two echocardiogram technicians, the program manager, and me on a table. Because part of the test involved introducing insulin, I experienced a pronounced version of the “fight or flight” syndrome. Halfway through the test I felt I was about to jump out of an airplane. My heart was pounding fiercely; I was extremely anxious. And yet, I was lying perfectly still. It was a very strange feeling, indeed. Well into the procedure, Dr. Gilardi was looking at the echocardiogram when he blurted out, “Well, I’ll be…Would you look at that.” He stared at the results, dumbfounded. Later in his office he explained to me that based on what he’d just seen, there was nothing whatsoever wrong with me. He said the echocardiogram showed not only a perfectly normal heart, but that if he were writing a textbook about what a perfect heart should look like, he’d use pictures of mine. Naturally, I was elated. I questioned him about the worrisome ST component and the ominous “blot.” He dismissed them as “false positives.” I’ve just turned 61, and have recently had another battery of physical tests, including a new stress-EKG. It showed my heart still “perfectly normal.” I never told Dr. Gilardi or my family physician about the cayenne because I had the feeling that they would both dismiss the idea and perhaps lecture me about quackery and “unfounded” claims. Maybe they’d be right. I still have no good evidence that cayenne cured me. Many books say it “may” help the heart by lowering cholesterol and reducing the risk of the blood clots that trigger heart attacks. Nothing has been reported conclusively, however, and doctors never said this was what my problem was. And yet the only thing I did differently between the second “flunking” and the experimental arbutamine echoeardiogram was to take the daily doses of cayenne. I’ve continued to take the cayenne and I passed my most recent treadmill test, on the same equipment as before, with flying colors. In fact, my blood chemistry report was the best it’s been in years. |