No – I’m not insulting anyone here, so calm down. I suffer from the occasional migraine myself, and was intrigued by this new treatment which I read in (of all things) Men’s Health. It advocates crushing a chili in your hand and literally, rubbing it into your nostrils. There’s even an all-natural nasal spray that sprays chili into your nose! Gives a whole new meaning to ‘pepper spray’.

I couldn’t find that vignette online, but there’s a whole bunch of info on using chili peppers (and their “active ingredient” capsaicin) to cure all kinds of pain. Here’s something on spicy meals and how it all works:

The chemistry of that spicy meal is quite fascinating. Capsaicin dilates the capillaries in the mucous membranes and skin, which is why your nose runs when you eat spicy food, explains Eric Yarnell, ND, RH (AHG), adjunct professor at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington. The dilation of the capillaries by capsaicin permits more efficient circulation of nutrients into tissue and waste material out. This helps remove not only any superficial irritants to the nasal pathway, but also anything deeper in the tissue produced in reaction to the chronic inflammation that has been causing the sinusitis and headaches. [link] [via]

Picture Source: aaaai.org

Your Sinuses

If you’re desi, you’ve already experienced this effect. And if you’re a headache sufferer, then you’re probably wondering how opening up your sinuses will cure your migraine. It’s because they are linked:

…although different chronic headaches are diagnosed and categorized according to a particular variety, they all share many of the same main factors, and therefore they should all be preventable and controllable by the same methods.

Studies have shown that nearly 50% of diagnosed migraine sufferers also experience sinus symptoms as part of their headache patterns. The most common “sinus” symptoms of a migraine included nasal congestion and general stuffiness, clear nasal drainage, and watery eyes. However, those same patients also experienced the following symptoms of a migraine: moderate-to-severe pain, sensitivity to light, pain worsened by activity, and nausea. [link]

And that’s not all – capsaicin is even good for other kinds of pain:

For arthritis pain, capsaicin based creams have proven themselves to be highly effective, but when applied to the skin on a daily basis, the heat sensation can be too much for some people. In addition, applying a cream everyday can be inconvenient, and quite time consuming.

Recently though, manufacturers have come up with a capsaicin patch that can easily be applied in painful areas. Once applied, the capsaicin patch effectively blocks pain receptors and reduces inflammation after only a few days of use. [link]

Here’s Wayne Perry‘s story. He’s the creator of Sinus Buster – the said nasal pepper spray which I talked about earlier.

As a chronic cluster headache sufferer, I discovered this effect purely by accident when I had an experience with a self defense pepper spray in 1992.

At the time, I was a self defense instructor making the talk show rounds, and I agreed to be sprayed by real defensive pepper spray for television news segment. Shortly before I had to do the demonstration, I got one of my terrible cluster headaches. If you’ve ever had a cluster headache, you’d know they are absolutely debilitating. Figuring I’d be on the ground riling in pain anyway, I went on with the demonstration.

Within seconds after the reporter sprayed me, my headache started to disappear. I had been on all kinds of headache drugs, but nothing ever worked like this. [link]

Incidentally, the chili – which we Indians love to call our own – isn’t native to India. It was brought there by the Portuguese, who picked it up from the Spanish who, in turn, got it to Europe after colonizing the Mexicans and other South American nations (read more chili history). However, right now desis are the largest producers of chilis in the world, with Guntur in Andhra Pradesh producing the most in India.

Picture Source: benhur.wordpress.com

So the next time you have a migraine, just snort some Hyderabadi biryani. Damn, I’m hungry!

You better watch out. An article in today’s Times talks about a study that showed that obesity is contagious.

Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When a person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.

Their study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved a detailed analysis of a large social network of 12,067 people who had been closely followed for 32 years, from 1971 until 2003. [link]

It’s not contagious in the way a cold or a flu is, but it’s more the mind-set that’s contagious.

Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a physician and professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a principal investigator in the new study, says one explanation is that friends affect each others? perception of fatness. When a close friend becomes obese, obesity may not look so bad.

?You change your idea of what is an acceptable body type by looking at the people around you,? Dr. Christakis said.

Family affects you less than friends. And distance doesn’t seem to matter. That is, even you move far away from an obese friend, there’s a chance that you’ll put on weight. They even give you the odds of gaining weight.

The answer, the researchers report, was that people were most likely to become obese when a friend became obese. That increased a person?s chances of becoming obese by 57 percent.

There was no effect when a neighbor gained or lost weight, however, and family members had less influence than friends.

Proximity did not seem to matter: the influence of the friend remained even if the friend was hundreds of miles away. And the greatest influence of all was between mutual close friends. There, if one became obese, the odds of the other becoming obese were nearly tripled. [link]

Now, all this talk of obesity has made me hungry. I’m going to find me a fellow overweight buddy so I can eat the burger shown above and blame my belly on him.

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A company called (aptly) P.B. Loco has come out with Peanut Butter – the Asian Curry Spice edition.

Incidentally, if you go to About.com’s “Elvis Presley’s Favorite Foods” page (yes, such a page exists), in the top right-hand corner, right next to the page title, is -you guessed it- a box with a few links from About.com on ‘How to Manage Your Heartburn’, including some Heartburn Podcasts. Consider yourselves warned…

[via Boing Boing]

Even though I’m a pretty big foodie, I don’t usually write restaurant reviews. I guess I’m one of those people who’d rather eat the food than write about it while pretending that I’m an expert on the subject. I’m much better at doing that kind of pretending with movies. But I’m a huge fan of Szechuan food, with its hot and spicy take on Chinese cooking.

So when we were driving around town the other day, it was with great excitement that we noticed a Szechuan place that didn’t look like your average Chinese joint with a picture of “Buddhist Delight” above the counter (read: boiled vegetables). Of course, we had to go. The place was called Spices II. Started by two sisters from Taiwan, it’s a Taiwanese take on Szechuan. Now I prefer the real thing myself, but until I find a good place, this one definitely does the job. It is excellent. The “II” is in there because it was the second one that they’ve opened. The first one called (of course) Spices is two blocks away. Both places are in the Inner Richmond district and the sisters have their own website where you can go for more info.

We were hungry when we walked in, which is good for the restaurateur, but bad for our wallets. The menu was replete with pork intestine, pork blood, pork kidney and pork stomach. We definitely wanted to pig out, but we weren’t in the mood for pork. Also, all tofu dishes had an additional prefix of ‘stinky’ tacked on to the name of the dish. I found this a little strange, since I don’t find tofu that appealing anyhow, and if you add a ‘stinky’ to the tofu, I’m definitely not going to order it! We ended up ordering the eels that you see above, lamb with scallions, chili cucumber, chili beef and wantons in hot oil.

The food did not have the “anaesthetic pepper” that is usually found in Szechuan cuisine. But the menu did say that it’s a Taiwanese take on the whole thing. Which is fine. The lamb was just soft enough, the beef was delicious, the eels were spectacular and the cucumber was a perfect side dish. The wantons however, were a little wanting.

Yes, I had to drink a fair amount of water. Yes, we had to order steamed rice (only the daring would eat that stuff plain). But I’m telling you – overall the food was excellent. By the time the check came around, we were expecting the worst. No fear though, it was under $40 for three of us, and we all got leftovers to take back home. Amazing. Great food, great price. If you’re in the area, I highly recommend it.

Spices II
291 – 6th Avenue & Clement, San Francisco, CA 94118
Tel: (415) 752-8885