New Year’s Hope: Cinnamon Gum and Candy: An Every Day Therapeutic May Prevent Spike SARS-CoV-2/Spike Infection

A study published Christmas Eve shows that a common and obviously safe confection may protect us in everyday life situations from SARS-CoV-2 and its Spike Protein.

Happiest of New Year’s to all! I wanted to end a very heavy year with some light news and hope for the year to come. On Christmas Eve a study was published by Japanese researchers Senpuku, et al., showing that common cinnamon and mint flavorings have the ability to prevent the Spike Protein from binding to our cells. As we all know, denying the Spike Protein access to our cells is absolutely the best way to avoid its deleterious effects.

The study we will look at builds on earlier work published two years ago. This work investigated flavor/fragrance combinations which could potentially inhibit the interaction of the Spike Protein with ACE2. Fascinatingly, they found that Cinnamyl alcohol and Helional were very effective at inhibiting the interaction.

Herein we report the results of screening of flavor/fragrance compositions that inhibit the binding of vRBD to hACE2. We found that the inhibitory effect was observed with not only the conventional vRBD, but also variant vRBDs, such as L452R, E484K, and N501Y single-residue variants, and the K417N+E484K+N501Y triple-residue variant. Most of the examined flavor/fragrance compositions are not known to have anti-viral effects. Cinnamyl alcohol and Helional inhibited the binding of vRBD to VeroE6 cells, a monkey kidney cell line expressing ACE2.

Identification of anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents based on flavor/fragrance compositions that inhibit the interaction between the virus receptor binding domain and human angiotensin converting enzyme 2
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0279182

The current study wanted to clarify this finding, and so tested the compounds in vitro. What they found was very interesting. Cinnamyl alcohol did not inhibit Spike binding at lower concentration levels, such as may be found in foods and confections. However, cinnamon flavor and cinnamon mint flavor were able to inhibit the interaction.

The inhibition effects were lost at 0.03125 % concentration of compounds excepting for cinnamon flavor and cinnamon mint. The inhibition effects of cinnamon flavor and cinnamon mint were observed at 0.03125 % and lost at >0.03125 % concentration of compounds.

Preventive effect of flavor/fragrance components on SARS-CoV-2 infections
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666517424001184

What does this mean? It means that may be able to use food items such as cinnamon gum and mints when entering social/crowded situations as an added level of protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its Spike Protein.

Therefore, it is considered that foods containing these flavorings have the potential to become innovative foods that can be expected to have an infection-inhibiting effect while being eaten. It is clear that infection spreads through the oral cavity. In particular, ACE-2 is expressed in the salivary glands, which is clearly a stage for infection (Xu et al., 2020). ACE-2 is also expressed in the oral mucosa (Matuck et al., 2021; Tanaka et al., 2023), and cinnamon mint and cinnamon flavor, which are convenient food materials as mix flavor/fragrances that may inhibit infection of SRAS-CoV-2 in the oral cavity, are extremely useful for preventing spread of the infection. On the other hand, for gums containing inhibitory flavoring compounds, it is necessary to increase the amount of flavoring compounds added to the chewing gum so that a sufficient amount of the flavoring compound is eluted to suppress infection, to change the amount of the flavoring compound to be easily eluted from the chewing gum, and to develop some kind of technology. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the dissolution properties from chewing gum. It was also considered necessary to consider ingredients other than gum, such as candy and paste (jam, etc.).

Preventive effect of flavor/fragrance components on SARS-CoV-2 infections
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666517424001184

I am unable to locate specific concentrations of flavorings in relevant products on the market. However, it would be important to ensure that the cinnamon flavor is natural, of course. Clawhammer Organic Hot Cinnamon Mints come to mind, yet I do not know if the cinnamon flavor concentration of one of the mints meets the criteria. That being said, I love cinnamon mints and will be happy to enjoy them when I am out and about.

Thank you for having journeyed with me for another year with your readership, dialogue and support! I look forward to us reading together next week, with a new year, a new set of challenges and an unending amount of hope moving us forward. Blessings, peace and love in this festive, beautiful, vibrant season.