Can you die from eating hot sauce?

After reading this recent news story, I was wondering if you can die from eating really spicy food.

BERLIN - Officials in Germany say eight teenagers were hospitalized after a test of courage in which they drank chili sauce more than 200 times hotter than typical Tabasco sauce.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

These boys are brave. Or stupid. Both? I like a little bit of spice in my chili but balk at the really spicy foods. I had a friend who was Indian and he'd always bring spicy food over. Some people liked it but it was too spicy for me.

Apparently no, you can't die but there are some adverse effects.

Adverse effects of spicy food

Anyone have any funny experiences with spicy food?

reply to post by TheComte

Anyone have any funny experiences with spicy food?

Not so much funny but it was pretty scary for me.

Some of my girlfriends and I went out to eat when we were in college. We were shown a bottle of hot sauce that was supposed to be super strong (I'm guessing similar to what the teenagers in the article consumed).

All I did was dip a toothpick in it then put a drop on my tongue to see how bad it was. It was so bad that it ended up provoking an asthma attack and closing off my airways.

It was terrifying. Sure enough, there was a warning on the bottle that said asthmatics shouldn't use that hot sauce. There were other medical disclaimers as well but asthma is the one I remember since that is what I suffer from and what made the hot sauce affect me so badly.

Really, what is the point of making something like that? If the human body cannot handle a drop, how are you supposed to pour it all over your food? It's so strong it has to come with medical disclaimers? Geez.

And I'm no sissy either- been in Texas all my life and can eat jalapenos right out of the jar. Spicy food doesn't faze me but that stuff literally almost sent me to the ER.

That is scary. Glad you're alright.

That sauce sounds positively toxic. Ouch!

I think consuming enough of anything could kill you. Even water.

I guess it depends on the individual, the product and the quantity.

I like spicy, but overdoing it to look brave is just dumb imo because you can't taste much afterwards.

Downing more than normal amounts of hot sauce may seem cool, but don't forget it burns twice...once on the way in and once on the way out.

I had an experience once I will never forget.
Someone cooked me dinner and put this insane hotpepper in it.
We agreed who ever got the pepper had to eat it...I had it on my plate.
I ate it and spent some time sucking on the tap.I think cooking it made it even hotter.
It later felt like it was burning a hole in my stomache so I went home and went to bed.
The next morning I woke up with that burning in my stomache
and couldn't stop gagging.
I have a morning routine that I do and no matter how hungover or how partied out I get I never have a problem doing my routine.

That day I was wondering if I was gonna be able to do what I normally do.
It made the worst hangover feel like heaven compared to that.
My stomache literally felt like it was on fire and was burning a hole.


[edit on 21-1-2010 by DrumsRfun]