NOTHING TO EXCESS.

That includes eating hot peppers on a dare.

The death of a Massachusetts teenager after his family said he ate an extremely spicy tortilla chip has led to an outpouring of concern about the social media challenge and prompted retailers to pull the product from their shelves at the manufacturer’s request.

The family of Harris Wolobah held a vigil Friday, a week after his death on Sept. 1, to remember the basketball-loving 10th grader while they await the results of an autopsy to determine what killed him.

Wolobah’s family has blamed the One Chip Challege for the teen’s death.

The challenge calls for participants to eat an eponymously named chip and then see how long they can go without consuming other food and water. The family has declined interview requests.

Police said they were called to the home on Sept. 1 and found Wolobah “unresponsive and not breathing.” He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The state medical examiner’s office said it will likely take weeks before Wolobah’s cause of death is determined. But the chip’s manufacturer, Paqui, asked retailers to stop selling the product.

People have been weighing in about their own experiences with the chip, which costs roughly $10 and comes individually wrapped in foil in a coffin-shaped box that warns, among other things, that it is made for the “vengeful pleasure of intense heat and pain,” is intended for adults and should be kept out of the reach of children.

I'm going to throw a penalty flag on that sort of promotion.  Years ago, when jalapeno bean dip was pretty edgy, and the jalapeno was the hottest pepper commonly available in these United States, there was a beer commercial involving some baseball players that featured one of them trying a jalapeno at the urging of another and then endorsing the beer because it was cold.  (Somebody with a better memory of beer commercials and better navigation of the internet archives might be able to find that.)

These days, there is a sort of arms race in making ever more potent hot peppers.

Some have decried yet another social media challenge endangering youth. But, the teen's death also spotlights a sparse but concerning crop of medical reports that suggest that the pursuit of ever-spicier hot peppers is getting more dangerous, potentially nearing a lethal limit.

The Paqui chip was seasoned with the Carolina Reaper pepper, the current hottest pepper in the world, and the Naga Viper pepper, which was the reigning hottest pepper in 2011 but is now merely among the top 10.

If you haven't kept track, heat-seeking chili growers have been breeding spicier and spicier hybrids. In 2007, the Ghost Pepper was the hottest, but in 2011, it was overthrown by a succession of new hybrids, including the Infinity Chili, the Naga Viper pepper, and the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper. Then, in 2013, the Carolina Reaper came along and has yet to be unseated—which may be for the best.

There are limits, and despite my penchant for spicy chili and for putting up potent salsa, I caution any reader to respect those warnings.

These extreme peppers are linked with serious health concerns. In the 2020 case study, the Mississippi doctors reported that a healthy 15-year-old developed severe headaches for days after eating a Carolina Reaper pepper on a dare. Six days later, when he showed up at an emergency department with worsening headache, nausea, and vomiting, doctors found that his blood pressure was spiking and arteries in his brain had spasmed, limiting blood flow and leading to swelling and an infarct (tissue death due to inadequate blood supply). They diagnosed him with reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS) secondary to pepper ingestion. After treatment, he made a full recovery.

"These ultraspicy peppers may either contain a unique vasoactive substance, or there is a dose-related effect of capsaicin concentration that can trigger RCVS," the doctors concluded. "Further research in this area is needed to determine the exact pathophysiology of this phenomenon. This case provides further evidence that ingestion of hot peppers may lead to serious consequences and that further research is needed to assess their safety."

So far, I have not experienced any of those outcomes. The Associated Press report, on the other hand, alerts readers to milder yet annoying consequences.

Joaquin Diaz, a 31-year-old construction worker from the Bronx, in New York, said he tried the chip a few weeks ago after coming across social media videos about the challenge. He said he loves spicy food and wanted to see how he’d stack up.

Diaz told The Associated Press by phone Friday that the chip was very hot, but he didn’t expect the stomach cramps and diarrhea that followed and led to him missing work the next day.

Without being indelicate, yes, the higher-Scoville peppers have as a side effect relief from constipation.  Too much beer or pop in combination can be risky.  It's better, though, to have more water, pop, or beer to hand than to have less.