A mouse study has found that a month of consuming cinnamon produced a significant cognitive improvement in poor-learning mice.

The mice were sorted into good and poor learners using a maze test. Analysis of the differences between the groups revealed differences in two brain proteins – increases in GABRA5 and a decrease in CREB in the hippocampus of poor learners. These effects, and the poor learning, were reversed by one month of cinnamon treatment.

The effect appears to be due mainly to sodium benzoate, a chemical produced as cinnamon is broken down in the body.

There is a warning about getting carried away and consuming vast amounts of cinnamon, especially if the product is the most common Chinese variety, which contains a compound called coumarin that may be toxic to the liver in high amounts. Apparently cinnamon from Sri Lanka is coumarin-free.

But it’s not necessary to consume vast amounts – the researcher says he takes about a a teaspoonful of cinnamon powder mixed with honey as a supplement every night. Myself, I just sprinkle it generously on my breakfast bowl, and again in my lunchtime smoothie.