GESUNDHEIT

The words coming through my car speakers shocked me. I replayed the CD again and again, and immediately I was troubled.

How could it be? No, it was not possible. Yet here it was, spoken with authority and conviction by none other than Andrew Weil.

The Andrew Weil.

Many of you may already know him. For those who do not, he is an M.D... just like me. Years ago, after exploring the world of the U.S. public health system (I think it was the '60s or early '70s), he decided to learn about other ways of healing. His journey from then to now is filled with stories: eating hallucinogenic mushrooms, discovering Yoga, and the value of healthy eating fills his books.

The man has written much on the subject of healing, and he has his own website to guide you. He is on staff at the University of Arizona in Tucson and runs the Program of Integrative Medicine. He is certainly no slouch or crackpot in the world of complementary or alternative medicine. (Although I did notice he trademarked his last name and on his website has a set of pots for sale for $799 that "is the first authentic cooking brand conducive to healthy living." All in the name of world healing, I guess.)

But here he was, the author of 8 Weeks to Optimum Health telling me that I shouldn't eat my absolutely favorite spice. What would I put on my over-easy eggs? What would I grind on my sliced tomatoes? What would I use for the poivre on my steaks? Say it ain't so, Andy. But I played it again, and yep he was claiming: Pepper causes cancer.

When I thought about it, I became worried. Here is the one food that causes you to sneeze, which immediately earns you a blessing for good health. Mmm... but the history of gesundheit relates more to your soul (and more recently your germs) leaving your body than it does to cancer. I had to research this fast.

Let me be clear about what sort of pepper I care about. Good old-fashioned black pepper, the kind that used to be used for currency, the original black gold. (I wonder if there was ever a gold-to-pepper spread?) Yes, I know that the same plant, Piper nigrum, native to India, also produces green and white peppercorns, but I'm talking about the black stuff. Give me a Lampong or Tellicherry to fill one of my many pepper mills any day. But I digress...

It turns out the pepper ingredient associated with cancer is called safrole. The stuff usually comes from the sassafras plant and has been outlawed as a food additive for years. Once used mostly in root beer and sassafras sodas and teas, safrole is banned from non-foodstuffs. Safrole is even on the DEA's list of chemicals designated in the production of illicit and controlled drugs.

In fact, many plants contain safrole. A favorite plant of mine, basil, contains safrole, too. How could this be? Could it be that my famous bruschetta with basil and cracked pepper was killing me? Further research confirmed that safrole degrades with heating, thus removing most of it in teas and cooking.

I began to smell a rat.

And yes, the cancer scare for safrole comes from research done in the 1960s and '70s on rats. Amazingly, scientists back then believed the rodent was a model for human health. To me this seems preposterous, but billions of dollars have been spent trying different compounds on these animals and then making conclusions in humans. The problem is, we are just a little bit different than our favorite new chef Remy (see the movie Ratatouille) and his brothers and sisters. Worse, the studies used doses that far exceed typical human exposure.

A classic example of this nonsense comes from saccharin, which was once banned as a carcinogen, but has since been allowed back into human mouths.

Studies with rats consuming the human equivalent of gallons of cola a day for a lifetime were done in the '60s and '70s. Yep, you read that right... gallons. The researchers also failed to recognize that rats metabolize the chemical saccharin differently than humans. The research was absurd and the conclusions nonsense, yet the substance was blacklisted for years.

As for safrole, I can find little more other than this lame 40-year-old attempt at proof of danger. More importantly, along the way, I discovered that these plants contain other chemicals – like d-limonene – which are thought to fight cancer. Perhaps a four-course meal with cracked pepper and wine for our rat acquaintances will give us the true insight into the dangers in my spices.

When it comes to pepper... What do I do?

Here's to our sneezes and good health – gesundheit,

David Eifrig Jr., M.D., M.B.A.