simply cinnamon

by Dave Harney

Is cinnamon the newest wonder drug? Utilized for more than 4,000 years as both a flavoring agent and a medicine, is this tasty spice actually a powerful agent that can help medical science control one of the most devastating diseases of modern times? There is still much research to be done, but the tentative answer is possibly, incredibly, yes!

Recent studies have shown cinnamon can significantly reduce blood sugar levels in diabetics. It may not only help combat this ever-growing disease, but also help prevent it. Don Graves, a researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) says, “cinnamon itself has insulin-like activity and also can potentiate the activity of insulin. The latter could be quite important in treating those with Type II diabetes. Cinnamon has a bio-active component that we believe has the potential to prevent or overcome diabetes.” Graves and his colleagues studied the effects of cinnamon on 60 diabetic obese mice at UCSB.

“More than 170 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, and for many, drugs or other forms of treatment are unavailable,” said Graves. “It may be possible that many of these people could benefit from readily available natural products, such as cinnamon.”

In another recent study, Richard Anderson, PhD, a US government researcher at the Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center, along with colleagues in the U.S. and in Pakistan, conducted a study on 60 Type II diabetics in Pakistan. For forty days the subjects were given either a placebo or one gram a day of cinnamon. The objective was to determine whether cinnamon improves blood glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol levels in people with Type II diabetes. The findings were published this year in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and the results were compelling. Of those in the group taking cinnamon over a 3-month period, blood sugars were anywhere from 18-29% lower than those in the control group. And that’s not all. Cinnamon had additional benefits. It lowered blood levels of fats and “bad” cholesterol. And in test tube experiments it neutralized free radicals, the damaging chemicals that are often elevated in diabetics.

The researchers also tested scores of other plant extracts, but none displayed insulin-enhancing activity anywhere near that of cinnamon. It is believed cinnamon works well in this application because it contains compounds known as polyphenolic polymers. In experiments using fat cells, these were found to increase sugar metabolism twenty-fold. Anderson states that “polyphenols are known for their antioxidant, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory functions, but they have not been commonly known to improve insulin function. The polyphenolic polymers in cinnamon bark have antioxidant effects, which may provide synergistic benefits to persons with various forms of diabetes.”

As exciting as these results are, if you are a diabetic there are several things to keep in mind before you go spice shopping. First, consult your doctor before making any significant change to your management program. Also, remember these studies were conducted on Type II diabetics. None of the study participants was using insulin, and it is not known how blood sugar will respond in a patient taking insulin and cinnamon. Finally, be aware that table cinnamon is made from cinnamon bark and contains both water and fat-soluble compounds. Fat-soluble compounds may accumulate in the body if ingested over a long period and could be toxic. Researchers say currently there are no data on potential effects of long-term ingestion of table cinnamon.