The substance that makes much spicy food taste hot has natural counterparts
in the body.
Capsaicin causes pain by binding to a receptor on nerve cells. It was
suspected that the body also produces a chemical that activates the receptor,
but no one could find it. Now a team led by Uhtaek Oh at Seoul National
University in Korea has discovered that enzymes called lipoxygenases produce
chemicals that latch onto the receptor. One of them looks just like capsaicin
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 97, p 6155).
Although it hurts at first, capsaicin can relieve pain,…
