Capsaicin

A New Target article titled Capsaicin from chili peppers may help prevent obesity, weight gain, touts capsaicin, a substance found in chili peppers, as having both fat fighting and anti-carcinogenic qualities. Promoting apoptosis, a preprogrammed cellular death process, has been attributed to capsaicin. Apoptosis is a fail safe measure of eliminating defective cells.

Optimal dietary amounts of capsaicin were said to be between 8 to 25 micromoles of capsaicin per day.