Your spice rack may hold a strong spice that could make it hard for your body to use drugs, right? A new study says.
A new study in Food Chemistry: Molecular Science found that lots of cinnamon can cause bad effects with some drugs. The people who did the study looked at how cinnamaldehyde—the stuff that makes cinnamon smell strong—moves in the body. They used fake gut and liver cells to see what might change when the stuff is taken in.
Cinnamaldehyde is easy for the body to take in and quickly turns into cinnamic acid, says Dr. Pamela Tambini. "When people take a lot, like pills or oils, it can wake up a 'switch' in the liver called PXR. This switch tells the body how to use many drugs. Cinnamon, if taken in big forms, could change how the body burns up drugs," she says.
The study was done in a lab, so we need more study on this. Still, the new report shows we have to be careful if eating lots of cinnamon, says Dr. Nicholas Church.
"It's fine if you drink one cup with cinnamon or eat something sweet now and then, but if you take pills or oil with lots of cinnamon, it could be a problem." Dr. Tambini says. "There is no set 'safe time,' but try not to take your drugs for two to four hours after a lot of cinnamon, just to be safe."
If you're not sure, Dr. Church says to always talk to your doctor. You may not feel strange right away, but eating a lot of cinnamon each day could change how the body uses drugs over time.
This is because ground cinnamon in food has much less of the strong bits than oil or pills do. "Cinnamon oil is much stronger and was the type most tied to waking up the liver switches and slowing the liver in the study," Dr. Church says.
To put it another way, cinnamon oil is made by pulling out the strong part, Dr. Church says. Ground cinnamon is just tree bark ground up, so it does not have much of the strong stuff. Since cinnamon oil gives your body more, it changes more in the liver, while the spice you cook with is weak and not likely to make things go wrong unless you eat a lot.
You do not need to stop eating cinnamon. "For most, cinnamon in food is safe and might help, like keeping blood sugar down or helping fight bad stuff in the body," Dr. Tambini says. To sum up, the study worries more about high-dose pills or oils used each day, not normal use.