I found an report on a study in a Discover magazine blog I thought some might find interesting. I couldn't see that it had already been posted so I'll share. I was curious as to what noxious stimulus they would use on subjects without a chronic pain diagnosis to test for pain relief. It seems they used an injection of chili pepper substance to induce pain (ouch). Both groups reported improvement of pain relative to the relief they got from taking other types of pain relievers.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/02/18/1st-medical-trial-o...
