吃了世界上最辣的辣椒會怎樣？

世界上最辣的卡羅來納死神椒，測量辣度高達200萬斯科維爾辣度單位。 LUIGI LAURIA/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

If you eat a really hot pepper, you expect pain. A lot of pain.

如果吃一個很辣的辣椒，你知道會產生痛感。很痛。

In addition to the feeling that you have just put a live coal in your mouth, you may weep, vomit and wonder where in your life you took a wrong turn.

除了感覺彷彿往嘴裡放了一塊燒紅的煤炭，你還可能會流淚、會嘔吐，會想你這輩子到底做錯了什麼。

You don』t expect a headache so intense and immediate that it sends you to the emergency room. But that』s what happened to a 34-year-old man who turned up at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, N.Y., with what clinicians call a thunderclap headache.

你想不到，吃辣椒還有可能很快產生劇烈的頭痛，能把人送進急診室。但這就是一名來到紐約庫珀斯敦巴塞特醫療中心(Bassett Medical Center)求醫的34歲男子的遭遇，臨床醫生稱之為雷擊頭痛。

His problems began when he ate a whole Carolina Reaper — the hottest pepper in the world, according to Guinness World Records — while participating in a hot-pepper-eating competition.

他在參加一個吃辣椒比賽時，吃下了一整隻「卡羅來納死神」(Carolina Reaper)——根據吉尼斯世界紀錄(Guinness World Records)，這是世界上最辣的辣椒——之後，麻煩就開始了。

He immediately started experiencing dry heaves — not unknown in the hot-pepper-eating world. But then a pain in his neck and head came on like … a thunderclap.

他馬上開始乾嘔——這對吃辣椒的人來說並不陌生。但他後來在脖子和頭部感受到一陣疼痛，就彷彿……雷擊。

It passed, but over the next few days he experienced more thunderclap headaches — that』s the clinical term — so he sought medical attention.

疼痛過去了，但在接下來的幾天里，他又感受到好幾次這種雷擊頭痛——這是個臨床術語——於是他尋求醫療。

Scans of his head and neck showed the kind of constriction in some arteries that can cause intense headaches, doctors reported on Monday in BMJ Case Reports. The scientific term for this temporary narrowing of arteries is reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome.

周一，醫生在《英國醫學期刊病例報告》(BMJ Case Reports)上稱，對他頭部和頸部的掃描顯示出某些動脈出現了會引發劇烈頭痛的緊縮。動脈的這種暫時性收縮在科學術語中稱為可逆性腦血管收縮綜合征。

Dr. Kulothungan Gunasekaran, one of the report』s authors, now at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, said that for some reason the man must have been particularly sensitive to capsaicin. The Carolina Reaper is a popular pepper, and many people eat them and experience nothing worse than the desire to cut out their own tongues.

該報告的作者之一庫洛桑格·古南西卡蘭博士(Dr. Kulothungan Gunasekaran)現在底特律的亨利·福特醫院(Henry Ford Hospital)工作，他表示，出於某種原因，這個男子肯定是對辣椒素尤其敏感。卡羅來納死神是一種很受歡迎的辣椒，有許多人在吃，感覺至多就是想要割掉自己的舌頭。

「I was discussing the case with a nurse who had eaten three Carolina Reapers,」 Dr. Gunasekaran recalled.

「我與一個吃過三顆卡羅來納死神的護士討論了這個病例，」古南西卡蘭回憶。

The Reaper has been measured at more than two million Scoville heat units, the accepted scale for how hot peppers are. Measurements vary, but a really hot habanero might come in at 500,000 Scoville units.

死神椒的測量辣度高達200萬斯科維爾(Scoville)辣度單位，這是公認的辣椒辣度等級。雖然測量結果各異，但一顆非常辣的哈瓦那辣椒可以達到50萬斯科維爾辣度單位。

The patient was fine, with no lingering damage, but thunderclap headaches are not to be dismissed. For one thing, there』s the pain, which seems to surpass even the normal effect of the peppers.

這位病人沒有大礙，沒有後遺症，但雷擊頭痛不應被置之不理。重要的是，這種痛似乎超過了吃辣椒可能引起的正常效果。

Dr. Lawrence C. Newman, a neurologist and director of the headache division at NYU Langone Health, said, 「On a one to ten scale, it』s off the charts.」 And it can indicate the kind of stroke that results from bleeding in the brain.

紐約大學朗格尼醫學中心(NYU Langone Health)頭痛部主任、神經學家勞倫斯·C·紐曼博士(Dr. Lawrence C. Newman)表示，「按一到十的等級，它爆表了」。它有可能預示由大腦出血而導致的中風。

It happens instantaneously. If that kind of headache hits you, it makes sense to seek medical attention 「whether you』ve bitten into a pepper or not,」 Dr. Newman said.

它是瞬間發生的。如果你出現了這樣的頭痛，「不論是否吃了辣椒」都應當求醫，紐曼說。

The new study does suggest that capsaicin, being investigated for its role in alleviating pain and lowering blood pressure, can have unexpected effects on certain people.

目前有人在研究辣椒素對減輕疼痛、降低血壓的作用；然而這項新的研究確實表明，它也可以對一些人產生難以預計的效果。

Cayenne pepper pills and a capsaicin patch, sold in China and Turkey, have been blamed in medical reports for two nonfatal heart attacks in young men, the result of spasms in arteries.

醫學報告曾把兩名年輕男子因動脈痙攣導致的非致命心臟病發作，歸咎於中國和土耳其有售的卡宴辣椒藥片和辣椒素貼片。

But 「we are not advising anything against the Carolina Reaper,」 Dr. Gunasekaran said.

但是，「我們不是在勸大家別吃卡羅來納死神，」古南西卡蘭說。

The Reaper was bred to reach record levels of heat. Reached by phone at the PuckerButt Pepper Company in Fort Mill, S.C., the Reaper』s creator, Ed Currie, offered mixed advice on pepper consumption.

卡羅來納死神是為了達到辣度最高記錄而培育出來的。時報通過電話聯繫到了位於南卡羅來納州米爾堡PuckerButt辣椒公司的死神椒培育者艾德·柯里(Ed Currie)，他提供了有關使用辣椒的不同建議。

On the one hand, he said, 「People who eat whole Reapers are just being stupid.」 But Smokin』 Ed, as he calls himself, also gave the impression that wasn』t such a bad thing. 「We eat them all the time,」 he said, with no ill consequences beyond pain.

一方面，他說，「一口氣吃完一整個死神椒的人是在犯傻，」但自稱「熱辣艾德」的他也讓人感覺，這並不是什麼壞事。「我們經常吃死神椒，」他說，除了疼痛沒有別的不良後果。

Mr. Currie indulges in other competitions of suffering. For instance, he said, he had recently taken the Death Nut Challenge, which involves eating insanely hot peanuts. He has a partnership with a company that produces them.

柯里也醉心於其他疼痛比賽。比如，他說，他最近參加了死亡堅果比賽，要求吃下無比火辣的花生。他與生產這些花生的廠家有合作關係。

「I knew beforehand I shouldn』t do it,」 Mr. Currie said. 「I was in pain for two hours.」

「我早就知道我不該參加，」柯里說。「我疼了兩個小時。」

For the average person interested in spice, not suffering, he advised using small amounts of any really hot pepper in food preparation, as they were intended.

對於喜歡辣味，而不是喜歡痛苦的普通人，他建議在準備食物的過程中少量使用任意一種真正的辣椒即可，辣椒也本該這麼用。

So if you happen to go beyond your limits — having, say, entered a hot-pepper-eating competition?

那麼，要是你不巧超過了自己的極限該怎麼辦——比如說參加了一個吃辣椒比賽？

「Citric acid seems to work the best to alleviate the pain,」 he said. 「Don』t chug milk because you』ll just throw it up.」

「檸檬酸似乎對減緩疼痛最為有效，」他說。「別大口地灌牛奶，因為這樣你只會吐出來。」

作者：JAMES GORMAN

翻譯：Jowii

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