London dentists use hot sauce for pain relief!
Ouch! I though hot sauce or Tabasco could literally sear your tongue off but it seems it can be used as an anesthetic! According to researchers, Clifford Woolf and his panel of the Harvard Medical School a mixture of capsaicin and substance QX314 could very well replace the use of local anesthetics in future dentistry.The Tabasco sauce company is however not very surprised. For quite a long time now the company has been selling seeds of the hot pepper to a company which isolates the active ingredient called as capsaicin for use in analgesic creams.
According to researchers, common local anesthetic work by blocking the passage of electrical impulses through the nerves to the brain. But local anesthetics block all impulses including the sensations of pressure and touch along with pain. Scientist Clifford Woolf hopes that the newer combination will block only pain receptors and nothing else! In fact, newer uses for the compound are being researched with one popular use being as an insect repellent on plants and as a preventive for barnacles on the underside of ships. But it will take a long time for the compound to be approved for human use in dental practice in London.
