Do hot sauces ruin our tastebuds?
The article only poses that question for the sake of sensationalism. If they lead with the fact that, no, it does NOT do any lasting damage, no one would read it. Cheap journalistic tactic.
Also, I find it truly weird that people feel the need to adjust and increase their tolerance. There will never come a time when you can't find something on a menu that doesn't burn with the fires of Vulcan and Hades combined, so here's the easy solution: Just don't bother if you don't enjoy the heat. Unless your dining companions are total asshats, they won't mind in the least.
Well, chilis can do some damage to some folk, and up until fairly recent times there was a theory that part of the reason we react the way we do is due to an allergy reaction as we digest the capsaicin. Defcon's presentations highlight how fierce and dangerous the 'hottest' whole samples are. So no, I don't think the article (as poorly written as it is) is merely sensationalist; it's written to provoke comments to to push the cooking shows and farmers' markets scenes. Both are in full swing here at present.
I do have one friend that can never get what he calls hot sauce 'hot' enough. But then he comes from a mix of Asian and African backgrounds where hot spice is valued as a daily necessity.
An interesting article from the Australian edition of The Guardian, asking whether our addiction to heat is bad for our palates...
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/australia-food-blog/2015/may/19/the-hot-sauce-trend-is-our-addiction-to-heat-bad-for-our-palates