A year or so ago we ran an FYI story on whether you could die from eating too many chili peppers. We said probably not, reasoning that it would take an impossible amount of peppers to do lethal damage. Well, take it easy on those hots; we’ve been proven wrong. Andrew Lee, a 33-year-old forklift driver from Edlington, Doncaster in the U.K., dared his girlfriend’s brother to eat a spoonful of a hot sauce Andrew had made from home-grown chilies. Andrew then ate a plate of the sauce, complained of itching before bed, and suffered a fatal heart attack by morning. Tests are still being run, but in the meantime it appears that it was indeed the spice that caused the attack.
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Share links with friends, comment on stories and more
In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.
Check out the best of what's new here.
I have a vial of Blair's 16 Million Reserve that I live in fear of, I wonder where this rates. The hottest I've actually used was The Source, 7.1 million scovilles and that was a bad idea.
from Roxboro, NC
Sounds awful....poor guy......
I grew some habanero peppers once with out realizing the what they really where.......something I will never forget.
I wounder what reaction in his body caused him to have a heart attack?
The following is a excerpt from Wikipedia:
"Capsaicin is a highly irritant material requiring proper ........ Severe over-exposure to pure capsaicin can result in death; the lethal dose (LD50 in mice) is 47.2 mg/kg."
I guess too much of a good thing :(
Omg...i should really stop eating so many spicy foods. :0
Omg...i should really stop eating so many spicy foods. :0