Science

Cinnamon can help ease Parkinson's disease

Recent research shows that cinnamon may also have very real effects in slowing the progress of Parkinson's disease, which affects 1.2 million people in the United States. 

In studies on mice treatment with cinnamon was found to reverse the biomechanical, cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with Parkinson’s disease.

 “Cinnamon has been used widely as a spice throughout the world for centuries,” Kalipada Pahan, PhD, study lead researcher and the Floyd A. Davis professor of neurology at Rush, said in a statement. “This could potentially be one of the safest approaches to halt disease progression in Parkinson’s patients.”

How does cinnamon work against this slow, progressive, and ultimately debilitating disease?

 The brains of Parkinson's sufferers have a higher than normal rate of death of important dopamine-producing brain cells, the result of which is the tremor and/or rigidity in the body that's the most obvious sign of the disease. (There are other physical symptoms too.) Levels of certain proteins that protect cells from stress are also lower, and it is via this complex mechanism that Parkinson's wreaks its particular havoc on the human system. 

Cinnamon is converted to sodium benzoate (NaB) by the liver — it moves as that compound into the blood and then up to the brain, where researchers think it blocks the molecules that threaten the proteins, mentioned above. This means that the proteins can do their job to protect cells from stress and keeps dopamine-producing cells doing what they do.  But so far, the mechanisms above have only been tested — and proven to work — on mice.