The Next Big Diet Ingredient?

Lizabelle1212

Article on Yahoo today claims the "next big diet ingredient" has been discovered: chili peppers.
Link to Article
Link to Referenced Study

Text excerpts for those who can't visit the link:

"Partial to spicy food? You’re in luck — a new study has found that capsaicin (the compound that makes chili peppers spicy) might help prevent obesity by stimulating thermogenesis and energy burning.
...
When lab mice ate pure capsaicin-containing foods, they were protected from high fat diet-induced obesity, Thyagarajan says. The capsaicin compound turned fat-storers into fat-burners — and has the same effect on humans. “In our body, white adipocytes store energy as fat and brown adipocytes expend energy by burning fat. We have discovered a novel mechanism by which capsaicin-stimulated cellular signaling triggers the conversion of white to brown adipocytes,” thus burning energy that would otherwise be stored as fat, Thyagarajan explains. “This is associated with an increased metabolism and energy expenditure.”
...
While the study helps shed new light on the benefits of spicy food, the researchers also see it as the first step toward developing an antiobesity drug. “Capsaicin is an ingredient from natural chili peppers and is easily amenable for development as a new drug for preventing and treating metabolic diseases like obesity, hypertension, type II diabetes, etc.,” Thyagarajan tells Yahoo Health."

Two main points are bothering me here:
1. Chili peppers can promote weight loss
2. They want to create a weight loss drug because obesity is considered a metabolic disease?

Thoughts, fellow MFPers?

ETA: To me, it sounds like some quackery we'll be seeing on Dr. Oz within the next month, but... I'm not a scientist/nutritionist/doctor/etc, so what do I know?