Researchers have known for a while that cinnamaldehyde, an essential oil that gives cinnamon its flavor and odor, can boost metabolism in mice, but the mechanism through which it does this wasn’t so well understood. Now, Jun Wu, research assistant professor at the LSI, has applied cinnamaldehyde to fat cells from both rats and humans. He and his colleagues learned that the oil acts directly on the fat cells (also called adipocytes), causing them to burn energy through thermogenesis (heat generation). In other words, cinnamon oil makes fat cells burn out. …
