Capsaicin Chemical Structure - Essay Example

Joe & Lokesh (1997) demonstrated in vitro that “peritoneal macrophages preincubated with 10 microM curcumin or capsaicin for 1 h inhibited the incorporation of arachidonic acid into membrane lipids by 82 and 76%: prostaglandin E2 by 45 and 48%; leukotriene B4 by 61 and 46%, and leukotriene C4 by 34 and 48%”. Nevertheless, the authors did not provide any pathophysiological substantiation of this effect. Probably, these changes were caused due to the antioxidative features of capsaicin.

In the opinion of some authors, the fact of capsaicin bidding to the intracellular side of the receptor is evidence of the presence of an endogenous intracellular activator. They consider that leukotrienes (products of LOs pathway of arachidonic acid metabolism) could be such activators (ibid)  (the hypothesis that certain products of LOs directly open capsaicin-activated channels. Thus the existence of endogenous capsaicin-like substances was approved (Hwang et al., 2000; Huang et al., 2002).