Great balls of fire! Capsaicin, the substance that makes chili peppers so darn hot, is an effective remedy for pain, and the rush from eating it can also be pleasurable for those who can't get enough of these fiery veggies.

Whether they eat them chopped up in salsa, bottled as sauce, added to chocolate, or (for the truly dedicated) straight up, Americans love their chili peppers. In fact, there's even a Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, dedicated to education, research, and archiving information on these firey vegetables.
No wonder, then, that the recent announcement of the world's hottest chili pepper made news. After months of testing and reviewing, researchers at the Chile Pepper Institute awarded the prize to the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, a bright red pepper about the size of a golf ball.
What makes chilis so hot, anyway? Experts say it's a compound called capsaicin, which when eaten produces that characteristic burning sensation, often accompanied by sweating, a runny nose, and watery eyes. The pain is then swiftly followed by a rush of endorphins, chemicals released by the brain that not only block the heat but can also cause a type of euphoria — which is what chili addicts find so irresistable.
It's that same capacity to block painful sensations that makes capsaicin a widely used ingredient in over-the-counter topical creams and ointments. "It's used for all kinds of arthritis pain, as well as for neuropathic pain and dermatologic conditions that have a painful itch," Ashwin Mehta, MD, director of integrative medicine at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, told ABC News.
Capsaicin can have minor side effects that include a burning or stinging sensation on the skin, redness, and swelling. If you use a capsaicin-containing ointment for pain, be careful not to get it in your eyes — this multipurpose substance is also the main ingredient in those pepper self-defense sprays.
So how hot is the new record-holding pepper? Chili pepper heat is expressed in Scoville heat units, a measure of how much capsaicin they contain. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion reaches more than 1.2 million units on the Scoville scale — by comparison, according to the Institute, a serrano pepper hits about 25,000 units and a jalapeno pepper about 5,000 units.