There’s new evidence to show that adding a certain popular spice to your routine can help shed the pounds and lose weight by boosting your metabolism
Losing weight is often portrayed as a straightforward endeavor – ‘eat less, move more’, say the experts.
But for many of us, the reality is far more complicated and challenging. The journey towards a slimmer body are fraught with obstacles, both physical and psychological, that can make achieving and maintaining a healthy weight a daunting task.
Professionals agree the two main goals to focus on are changing your diet and taking more exercise – but there’s new evidence to show that adding a certain popular spice to your routine can help shed the pounds.
Fresh research has shown that Yuletide favourite cinnamon – often used in festive treats such as mulled wine and Christmas cake – could actually boost your metabolism, thus helping you burn more calories.
The spice has previously been linked to cutting the risk of diabetes, lowering cholesterol, aiding symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and helping in the fight against cancer and heart disease. Experiments have shown the main ingredient in cinnamon – cinnamaldehyde – burns fat in humans. This pale yellow liquid makes up 90 per cent of the bark in cinnamon trees.
And now – for the very first time – a study published in Metabolism journal has demonstrated the mechanism behind the compound’s health benefits, thus opening the door to a ‘cinnamon pill’ to treat a range of conditions. Professor Jun Wu, of the Life Sciences Institute at Michigan University in the US, explained: “Cinnamon has been part of our diets for thousands of years – and people generally enjoy it. 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.”
Prof Wu said cinnamon could be used to fight the obesity epidemic. Earlier studies have shown the essential oil was seen to prevent mice from getting fat and developing high blood sugar, which can lead to diabetes.
She continued: “Scientists were finding this compound affected metabolism. 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.”
It was found that cinnamaldehyde improves metabolic health by acting directly on fat cells called adipocytes. This causes them to start burning fat through a process called thermogenesis which uses up energy to destroy calories. The scientists tested the adipocytes of volunteers with a range of ages, ethnicities and BMIs (body mass indices).
After treating the cells with cinnamaldehyde, researchers saw heightened expression of various genes and enzymes responsible for enhancing the metabolism of blood fats, or lipids. Additionally, an increase in proteins like Ucp1 and Fgf21 was noted, which play crucial roles in regulating thermogenesis.
Throughout evolution, adipocytes, the cells primarily responsible for storing energy in the form of lipids, served our ancestors well, particularly in times of scarcity and colder temperatures when access to high-fat foods was limited. In such conditions, adipocytes would convert stored energy into heat, providing a valuable source of warmth and sustenance.
“It’s only been relatively recently that energy surplus has become a problem,” Prof Wu said. “Throughout evolution the opposite – energy deficiency – has been the problem. So any energy-consuming process usually turns off the moment the body doesn’t need it.”
With the rising obesity epidemic researchers like Prof Wu have been looking for ways to prompt fat cells to activate thermogenesis – turning those fat-burning processes back on. She believes cinnamaldehyde may offer one such activation method.
However, she added that further studies are needed to determine how best to harness cinnamaldehyde’s metabolic benefits – without causing adverse side effects. An earlier Japanese study found cinnamaldehyde stimulated the metabolism of the fatty visceral tissue in mice – suggesting the spice could combat a pot belly.
Amid the escalating obesity epidemic, researchers such as Prof. Wu have been actively seeking methods to stimulate thermogenesis in fat cells, effectively reigniting the body’s fat-burning processes. She says that cinnamaldehyde might hold promise as one such stimulant.
Nevertheless, she stresses the need for additional studies to discern the optimal means of leveraging cinnamaldehyde’s metabolic advantages while mitigating potential adverse effects.
