Weight loss trick for the season: Fight Fat with Cinnamon
What sinister forces are at play when- in spite of everything you’ve read and heard about healthy eating guidelines, obesity and diabetes- you still choose burger over salad, sugary soft drink over water, fried chicken over salmon?
Contrary to what many religiously believe, it is the inability to grow more fat during times of energy surplus, rather than the excess of fat which appears to directly contribute to the metabolic consequence often associated with obesity.
And now, Cinnamaldehyde, an essential oil that gives cinnamon its flavor, may improve metabolic health, researchers at the University of Michigan report.
If you want to lose weight, you should avoid stuffing yourself with cinnamon rolls and other cinnamon-spiced treats. Yet cinnamon itself isn’t the problem. The common holiday spice might actually protect against obesity and hyperglycemia.
Cinnamaldehyde (CA) is an essential oil within cinnamon that gives it its flavor. Following previous studies that found cinnamaldehyde protected mice from obesity and hypoglycemia, a team of Michigan researchers decided to test the compound on human fat cells to see if they could observe the effect it had on them.
“Scientists were finding that this compound affected metabolism,
” says Jun Wu, an assistant professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School. “So we wanted to figure out how—what pathway might be involved, what it looked like in mice, and what it looked like in human cells.”Wu and her colleagues tested human adipocytes from volunteers representing a range of ages, ethnicities, and BMIs. When the cells were treated with cinnamaldehyde, the researchers noticed increased expression of several genes and enzymes that enhance lipid metabolism. They also observed an increase in Ucp1 and Fgf21, which are important metabolic regulatory proteins involved in thermogenesis.
“Inhibition of PKA or p38 MAPK enzymatic activity markedly inhibited the CA-induced thermogenic response,” wrote the article’s authors. “In addition, chronic CA treatment regulates metabolic reprogramming. Importantly, both acute and chronic effects of CA were observed in human adipose stem cells isolated from multiple donors.”
Wu says that a sprinkle of cinnamon here or there may not be enough to show immediate, measurable effects on metabolism. However, “we speculate that you don’t have to eat a large amount of cinnamon all at once,” she says. “If you eat it every day, we suspect there will be a cumulative effect, and that over time you will achieve these benefits.”
With the rising obesity epidemic, researchers have been looking for ways to prompt fat cells to activate thermogenesis, turning those fat-burning processes back on. One such activation method, Dr. Wu believes, may involve cinnamaldehyde—particularly now that cinnamaldehyde’s effects have a mechanistic explanation.
“Given the wide usage of cinnamon in the food industry,” noted the authors of the current study, “the notion that this popular food additive, instead of a drug, may activate thermogenesis, could ultimately lead to therapeutic strategies against obesity that are much better adhered to by participants.”
“Cinnamon has been part of our diets for thousands of years, and people generally enjoy it,” Dr. Wu explained. “So, if it can help protect against obesity, too, it may offer an approach to metabolic health that is easier for patients to adhere to.”
Wu says that her team’s research is another piece of evidence in cinnamon’s favor. “After this, I would recommend eating a little more than you do already,” she says. “If you already eat a lot of it, carry on—and if it’s not something you use regularly, it’s a great time to start.”
