Adipocytes normally store energy in the form of lipids. This long-term storage was beneficial to our distant ancestors, who had much less access to high-fat foods and thus a much greater need to store fat. That fat could then be used by the body in times of scarcity or in cold temperatures, which induce adipocytes to convert stored energy into heat.
“It’s only been relatively recently that energy surplus has become a problem,” 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 Wu have been looking for ways to prompt fat cells to activate thermogenesis, turning those fat-burning processes back on.
Wu believes that cinnamaldehyde may offer one such activation method. And because it is already used widely in the food industry, it might be easier to convince patients to stick to a cinnamon-based treatment than to a traditional drug regimen.
“Cinnamon has been part of our diets for thousands of years, and people generally enjoy it,” Wu said. “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.”
Now, before anyone goes dumping tons of extra cinnamon in their egg nog in hopes of keeping holiday-season pounds at bay, Wu cautioned that further study is needed to determine how best to harness cinnamaldehyde’s metabolic benefits without causing adverse side effects.
The research was supported by the Human Frontier Science Program, Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation, National Institutes of Health and American Heart Association.
Other study authors were: Juan Jiang, Margo Emont, Heejin Jun, Xiaona Qiao, Jiling Liao and Dong-il Kim, all of U-M.
The study is titled “Cinnamaldehyde induces fat cell-autonomous thermogenesis and metabolic reprogramming,” DOI: 10.1016/j.metabol.2017.08.006.