For Students, This Spice is Right

Researchers have long touted the benefits of cinnamon — but now students in particular may want to pay attention. A healthy dose of the spice could help boost grades this school year.

Dr. Kalipada Pahan, a professor of neurological sciences with Rush University and the Jesse Brown Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Chicago, has found in experiments with mice that cinnamon turns poor learners into good ones.

“The increase in learning in poor-learning mice after cinnamon treatment was significant,” said one researcher.

He hopes the same will hold true for people.

“The increase in learning in poor-learning mice after cinnamon treatment was significant,” Pahan said in a statement. “For example, poor-learning mice took about 150 seconds to find the right hole in [a] maze test. On the other hand, after one month of cinnamon treatment, poor-learning mice were finding the right hole within 60 seconds.”

The effect appears to be due mainly to sodium benzoate — an ingredient found in many processed foods. Researchers say the chemical is produced as cinnamon is broken down in the body. When that happens, sodium benzoate readily enters the brain and stimulates hippocampal plasticity. The hippocampus is the brain’s main memory center.

Pahan’s group first tested mice in mazes to separate the good and poor learners. Good learners made fewer wrong turns and took less time to find food. As they further analyzed disparities between the good and poor learners, Pahan’s team said they found differences in two brain proteins.

The gap, however, was all but erased when cinnamon was given.

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The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health said, “High-quality clinical evidence to support the use of cinnamon for any medical condition is generally lacking,” and little if any clinical research has been done on the spice’s possible brain-boosting properties.

Simply smelling the spice may not help: “For metabolism [to occur], cinnamaldehyde should be within the cell.”

But the spice has been used for its potential healing properties around the world for centuries. Other studies have shown it has both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as cognitive boosting effects. In one study, researchers at Wheeling Jesuit University found that visual-motor responses sped up and attention scores improved when volunteers chewed cinnamon-flavored gum versus no gum or other flavors.

Another study done by the Agricultural Research Service found that “cinnamon extract prevented brain cells from swelling in the ways typically seen after a traumatic brain injury or stroke,” Health.com reported.

Based on the results from his group’s pre-clinical studies, Pahan said he believes that “besides general memory improvement, cinnamon may target Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment [a precursor to Alzheimer’s], and Parkinson’s disease as well.” He is working on a clinical trial for Alzheimer’s.

For those willing to consider the potential benefits, Pahan recommends the Ceylon or Sri Lanka varieties of cinnamon, which are coumarin-free. The Chinese varieties, he said, are toxic when consumed in large amounts. Simply smelling the spice may not help, he added, because “for metabolism [to occur], cinnamaldehyde should be within the cell.”

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Pahan himself takes about a teaspoonful — 3.5 grams — of cinnamon powder mixed with honey as a supplement every night. He said if the research on cinnamon continues to move forward, he envisions a similar remedy being adopted by struggling students worldwide.

“Individual differences in learning and educational performance is a global issue,” he said. “In many cases, we find two students of the same background studying in the same class, and one turns out to be a poor learner and does worse than the other academically. Now we need to find a way to test this approach in poor learners. If these results are replicated in poor-learning students, it would be a remarkable advance. At present, we are not using any other spice or natural substance.”