A new study finds that capsaicin, the pungent compound in chili peppers, can successfully stop lung cancer metastasis, Medical News Today reports.

According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is "by far the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women" in the United States.

The Society also estimate that 228,150 people will develop lung cancer and 142,670 people will die from the condition in 2019.

Most deaths occur as a result of the cancer metastasizing, or spreading, to distant parts of the body.

New research suggests that there may be a nutritional compound that can hinder this process of metastasis. Capsaicin, which is the chemical compound that gives chili peppers their pungent flavor, stopped lung cancer metastasis in rodents and cultured human cell lines.

Piyali Dasgupta, Ph.D., from the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine in Huntington, WV, is the senior investigator of the new study. Jamie Friedman, a doctoral researcher in Dasgupta's lab, is the first author of the paper.

Friedman and colleagues presented their findings at the American Society for Investigative Pathology annual meeting in Orlando, FL.