Cinnamon can reverse changes in the brains of mice with Parkinsons | Hacker News Reader

Cinnamon can reverse changes in the brains of mice with Parkinsons

rush.edu

215 pointsrodedwards83 comments

Because it's clear there isn't a lot of expertise in this thread, I'd like to make clear that nobody should be doing the cinnamon challenge based on these results, or the results of the authors' previous study on the topic. So far, the authors have some interesting data from cell lines and now a mouse model of PD. Specifically, the mouse model is generated by chemical intoxication with a molecule called MPTP, which results in damage to dopaminergic cells in the substantia nigra, the region of the brain whose degeneration is predominantly implicated in the etiology of PD. There is good reason to be skeptical about whether this animal model of the disease is clinically relevant to sporadic PD seen in patients. Furthermore, dramatic results seen in a very obscure journal (i.e. not a mainline journal for neurodegenerative research) should generally result in knee-jerk skepticism until others repeat the work and a more significant review process has taken place. It should go without saying that there have been many compounds in the past two decades to show some interesting results at a preclinical stage that have not passed muster when moving to real patients.

i dont care what you say, i see this as a green light to eat more cinnabuns.

It's sort of gimmicky to say that Cinnamon does this, because it's known to be sodium benzoate that causes this effect.

In 2012 they discovered that sodium benzoate has an effect on Parkinson's disease proteins: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21701815.

This new study is, at least, a confirmation of the older study, and is also an attempt to use it to treat the disease.

Interesting. I didn't realize cinnamon metabolized to sodium benzoate. I've actually been trying to avoid sodium benzoate, especially in soft drinks because of worry what that preservative could possibly be doing to us (especially in the presence of vitamin c) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_benzoate But I've been purposefully eating a bunch of Cinnamon.

It's hard to reconcile sometimes what might be good for me or if it's killing me - Nicotine may have helped a young girl with epilepsy. http://www.clickorlando.com/news/central-florida-doctor-find...

Nicotine is sort of a mixed bag, but it isn't really the bad part of tobacco products. Cigarettes are generally bad for you because of all of the other things in them besides nicotine. The bad part of nicotine is that it is so highly addictive, but it's health benefits for things like ulcerative colitis and other afflictions are becoming better studied.

The ingredients in cigarettes are what actually make nicotine addictive...alone, it can actually be beneficial to the brain

>> The ingredients in cigarettes are what actually make nicotine addictive

Uh, that sounds wrong.

"Snus" users get addicted. That is tobacco, even if it isn't burned. But afaik, users of e-cigarettes also get dependent -- that isn't tobacco.

> But as laboratory scientists know, getting mice or other animals hooked on nicotine all by its lonesome is dauntingly difficult. As a 2007 paper in the journal Neuropharmacology put it, “Tobacco use has one of the highest rates of addiction of any abused drug. Paradoxically, in animal models, nicotine appears to be a weak reinforcer.”

http://www.salon.com/2013/12/29/sciences_obsession_the_searc...

There's a bunch of on-going research on nicotine gum dependence too. I was a participant in a study for this.

Radioactive polonium is the really worry with tobacco use.

Not sure why I was downvoted, look here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Tobacco

Edit: I stand corrected. Thank you

It's not entirely true. Even though the vast majority of tobacco-related cancer deaths may be caused by polonium, cancer deaths are still only around a third (iirc) of total tobacco deaths.

Compare the 12,000 at the Wikipedia link to the 1.6 million here:

http://www.who.int/cancer/prevention/en/

From those numbers, the polonium is not a primary concern.

There is a craze at least my part of the world over eating roasted seaweed. Mosly Korean-style, but it's the same seaweed you find across most of East Asia. 10-20 years ago, MSG allergies were one of the first food allergy crazes and every wanted MSG-free food. MSG as an additive is harvested primarily from this type of seaweed. That's why the seaweed is so savory.

Chances are very likely that you will die as a partial result of what you eat, or don't eat regardless of whatever diet decision you make.

I don't think it's gimmicky. Cinnamon is cheap and easy to make and easy to deliver to the patient. Those practical implications are lost if it's only referred to as sodium benzoate. I don't know if this research is done with the same grants as the MS/Cinnamon study from the NIH, but it sounds like it: http://www.rush.edu/webapps/MEDREL/servlet/NewsRelease?id=15...

I doubt that cinnamon is cheaper than sodium benzoate.

Hey, we can use actually data for this!

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/price-of-sodium-benzoate.htm... http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/cinnamon-price.html

Looks like the prices are surprisingly similar, though cinnamon is, if anything, more expensive. Additionally, I'd imagine that if sodium benzoate is the active ingredient, you'd need less of it to get the job done.

I'm not sure if you can assume this. I'm not sure myself, but the path that sodium benzoate finds its way into the bloodstream (or wherever it needs to be) is a bit more complicated than just "eat this pure sodium benzoate".

Apparently, cinnamon can be used as a vehicle for moving sodium benzoate to wherever it needs to be.

Just in case anyone is thinking of purchasing through Alibaba:

Alibaba is notorious for scammers. I know two startups that have lost around $20,000 each on material suppliers listed there who send something cheaper (usually completely different) than what has been requested upon payment. It's usually the orders that are around $1000 that Chinese chemical/raw materials supply companies selectively scam on.

Some of the "cinnamon" results are stuffing some very odd keywords for what looks like a simple fluorescent tube.

Do Alibaba also have prices for apples and oranges?

Apples: http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_...

Oranges: http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_...

Once there's a patent on the use of sodium benzoate to treat things, it will be.

OK, you'll still be able to get generic sodium benzoate cheap, but it won't have whatever magic fairy dust the patented version adds to it.

and i can put cinnamon on my oatmeal but sodium benzoate sounds disgusting

weelllll the effect is supported in mice; likely after absorption. that is, starting with sodium benzoate may not survive the digestion process sufficiently before arrival at the target tissue (possibly the substantia nigra)

besides: cinnamon rolls! (with the more cinnamon the better)

For US HN'ers, "cinnamon" that is commonly used as a flavorant in the US is Cassia; Ceylon cinnamon has a milder taste that is slightly different and may be a little bit unusual for American tongues.

If you want the really good stuff try Vietnamese cinnamon (also known as Saigon). It has the highest essential oil content and is very aromatic.

Naive comment: Indian food is loaded with cinnamon. Especially sweets. So why is India host to second largest population of Parkinsons afflicted[1]? Or maybe people are not served cinnamon rich food as they grow older because they are also rich in fat and sugar? I guess orthogonal studies like these don't have much value. There are obviously several other factors at work here.

1. http://www.epda.eu.com/en/parkinsons/life-with-parkinsons/pa...

Edit: Explicit naivety Edit 2: Hold on. Just glossed over the fact that we also have the second largest population on earth. In that case, there might be a correlation after all.

The real question is why is the US so high? Our rates are almost as high as India's, with 1/3 the population. I have a feeling it is likely diet related, and possibly due to either the "low fat" craze not providing building blocks in the brain or the industrial fats (in particular trans fats but maybe the massive quantities of n-6 fats) causing structures to be built incorrectly or causing excess inflammation.

So, that's my hypothesis based on having done a lot of nutrition research but no Parkinson's research. Does anybody have any real info about why the US rates are so high?

Was just going to comment prior to your edit, but we really should compare rates of occurrance rather than population size.

Don't underestimate the value of "naivety". Gives people a fresh set of perspectives.

Original article http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11481-014-9552-2 (paywalled)

http://scitr.com/a14

Dammit, I first understood this as the Desktop Manager and awkwardly asked "How can a software change the... oh!"

Need to take a vacation it seems XD

To get a better perspective here, I wish there was discussion around ... I dunno ... the full text of the actual study discussing dosage levels, etc. Also some knowledge of gram-per-gram conversion of cinnamon to sodium benzoate through its hepatic metabolism might be informative. But, sigh, let's just rant and call each other names.

My mom was kind of a health nut when we were a kid, she was getting organic food way before it was in vogue to do so, and I remember when she got us Cinnamon capsules to take in the morning with our other vitamins. I always thought it was silly to take a caplet full of cinammon, but I guess maybe there was something to it

Are you seriously suggesting that people should go buy a bunch of junk from the organic food shops just in case one of them turns out to be good for you in the future?

Adversely, what happens if one of them turns out to be a carcinogen or otherwise something that adversely affects health?

Your mom isn't wise, she just threw enough unproven stuff down her kid's throats so that it was inevitable that one of them one day might prove useful. I wonder how many damaging things (or potentially damaging) you also consumed?

Are you saying organic food is carcinogenic ? not sure what your point is.

Or are you saying one shouldn't consume random stuff ? In that case, cinnamon is not random. It's a spice in use for thousands of years with many benefits already written about in traditional medicine, like turmeric. Unless you are anti-traditional medicine....in which case suddenly a lot of the wisdom over the ages must become suspect, and even rejected.

This is a really offensive comment... Plants create compounds to battle pests and radiation from the sun. A lot of these compounds such as anthocyanins and phenols are extremely beneficial to healthy humans. Definitive science is actually still catching up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenol

What he said isn't offensive at all. The mothers that make their kids eat all sorts of unproven remedies, trying to stay ahead of proven science, are just as bad as the ones that refuse injections, trying to stay behind proven science.

Down vote me all you want, but there is a reason why science exists and has rigorous testing methodologies.

> Plants create compounds to battle pests

You mean like Foxglove, Poison Ivy, and Rhubarb leaves, all of which are harmful to humans?

in-vivo or in-utero?

Garlic kills cancer cells in petrie dishes, but not at all when you eat it.

Something to it, as in it prevented your childhood-onset parkinsons?

Once they figure out the dosing, etc, it'd be amusing if the effect size of the human trial is better than Azilect, which gets trumpeted a lot by marketing, but doesn't do that much and has a $400-$700/month copay for patients...

Mice don't even get Parkinson's. The misleading title is not even in the university's press release of the mouse model study: "Cinnamon May Be Used to Halt the Progression of Parkinson’s disease"

You can read up all of this science and keep adjusting your diet - or you can just shift to Indian food - recent medical research is ceiling its place as the healthiest diets on plant earth.

Reminds me of http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?n=1174

I've read cinnamon might help with diabetes too? Would that be the same mechanism?

The mechanism here appears to be the metabolism of compounds in cinnamon into sodium benzoate, which we already knew was helpful with Parkinson's.

The mechanism behind cinnamon's effects on blood glucose, OTOH, seems not to be terribly well-studied, given a few minutes' searching. One paper I found says, "cinnamon enhances glucose uptake by activating the insulin receptor kinase activity, auto-phosphorylation of the insulin receptor, and glycogen synthase activity." [1] Otherwise, the literature seems all to be, "We observed this effect..."

EDIT: Pointers to better sources welcome.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3326760/

Good grief, maybe I'm getting old, but is up with that font size?

I'm 23 and I agree, it's tiny.

Cinnamon can also reverse changes in the brains of people with Unity.

Glozell is never getting Parkinsons!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cyk7utV_D2I

I'm starting to think I should munch a mix of powders every morning. Cinnamon, tummeric, garlic etc.

The bioavailability of curcumin (found in turmeric) is much better when taken along with piperine (found in black pepper).

Also, welcome to the club: http://www.reddit.com/r/supplements

I was just going to comment on this, then saw your post.

When we cook, our muscle memory is to add black ground pepper when adding turmeric.

We also favor cinnamon because it is anecdotally supposed to be a good anti-inflammatory agent - if this is not true, at least it tastes good with many foods.

Don't forget examine.com:

http://examine.com/supplements/Cinnamon/

I've been mixing cinnamon, ginger, and tumeric in oatmeal and juice blends every morning for a while, but hadn't heard about the interaction with piperine. Looks like that information was primarily based on one study in 1998, but it probably can't heard too much. Added black pepper this morning. Thanks for the tip.

Yeah, that's called a curry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry_powder#Ingredients

Or just eat a lot of Indian food :)

If you don't have Parkinson's, and the associated brain changes that this is reversing, what would be the point?

>>If you don't have Parkinson's, and the associated brain changes that this is reversing, what would be the point?

The point...hedging my bets. I don't know whether I've got Parkisons...not will I until its too late.

So as long as its backed by something resembling science I'm OK with integrating minor changes into my life on the off chance that it might work. e.g. Right now I'm throwing a decent dose of tummeric into most of my cooking. Tastes fine, costs near zero and might help somewhere along the line. Worse case scenario is that nothing happens and I'm 0.1 USD poorer per month. Hell I suspect I'll receive more positive benefit from believing I might gain a benefit...some difference really.

Well, worst case scenario is the (very rare) chance of getting contaminated product through international spice adulteration and counterfeiting - and that contamination giving you some unpleasant food poisoning that gives you kidney disease leading you to either need a transplant or to live on dialysis for years.

I just did a web search for contaminated spoces and there are some recent US cases of imported turmeric that was high in lead. So worst case is that you very slowly give yourself lead poisoning.

>>Well, worst case scenario is the (very rare) chance of getting contaminated product through international spice adulteration and counterfeiting

True enough. Though as far as contamination goes...I'm far more worried about other products. The spices are all a local brand - one in which I've got reasonable trust. Things like olive oil though...fake olive oil seems to be par for the course. That freaks me out 100x more than "fake" parsley.

Or you can buy turmeric + BioPerine from a reputable US based company with extensive metal testing to make sure there's no contamination, like DrVita (where I happen to be employed and can confirm an obsession with testing for heavy metals)

You can grow your own tumeric in your garden fairly easily.

May be you should just have some Indian curry or spicy biryani. Both are loaded with all of those.

Make yourself a really weird smoothie!

Natural products rules!

best window manager ever ;-)

Cool, I wonder if I can try it on OpenSuSE (although I'm pretty well married to KDE).

Who knew that an article on Parkinson's would lead to learning about another window manager!

YOLO

haters gon' hate

The spice must flow

He who controls the SPICE! Controls the UNIVERSE!!!

Downvotes make me sad. HN has no sense of humor.

Sure we do. Plenty of top comments are funny, but they're just topical, relevant, and - most importantly - include some actual original thought. Posting the same old tired references just isn't funny to this crowd.

HN comments include tons of interesting, original thoughts; However in all the time I have been lurking here, there has been no top comment that has elicited nary a chortle from me.

Let's not turn this site into reddit.

I knew that using Linux Mint was good for my health!

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Although the challenge will be to actually get the spoon inside his mouth... Now I feel bad about both of us :(

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