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Cinnamon for diabetics? YEP!


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#1 Rogerdodger

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Posted 09 April 2006 - 09:54 AM

Sometime ago, an accidental discovery showed that adding cinnamon spice to your diet might significantly reduces blood sugar levels in diabetics.
A second study now seems to confirm the finding.
A third study finds benefits from clove.
(Click on headlines to link to full articles)

Cinnamon spice produces healthier blood
NewScientist.com news service, November 2003, Debora MacKenzie
Just half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day significantly reduces blood sugar levels in diabetics, a new study has found. The effect, which can be produced even by soaking a cinnamon stick your tea, could also benefit millions of non-diabetics who have blood sugar problem but are unaware of it.

The discovery was initially made by accident, by Richard Anderson at the US Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland.
The active ingredient in cinnamon turned out to be a water-soluble polyphenol compound called MHCP. In test tube experiments, MHCP mimics insulin, activates its receptor, and works synergistically with insulin in cells.


All responded within weeks, with blood sugar levels that were on average 20 per cent lower than a control group. Some even achieved normal blood sugar levels. Tellingly, blood sugar started creeping up again after the diabetics stopped taking cinnamon.

The cinnamon has additional benefits. In the volunteers, it lowered blood levels of fats and "bad" cholesterol, which are also partly controlled by insulin. And in test tube experiments it neutralised free radicals, damaging chemicals which are elevated in diabetics.


Cinnamon, Cloves Improve Insulin Function, Lower Risk Factors For Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease

Article Date: 09 Apr 2006 - 10:00am (UK)Posted Image

Two studies presented at Experimental Biology 2006 provide new evidence for the beneficial effects (and biochemical actions) of cinnamon as an anti-inflammatory agent and support earlier findings of its power as an anti-oxidant agent and an agent able to lower cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose, and improve how well insulin functions.
Dr. Heping Cao of the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center and colleagues, including Dr. Anderson, investigated the biochemical basis for the insulin-like effects of cinnamon. Results showed that cinnamon, like insulin, increases the amount of three critically important proteins involved in the body's insulin signaling, glucose transport, and inflammatory response. Dr. Cao says the study provides new biochemical evidence for the beneficial effects of cinnamon in potentiating insulin action and suggests anti-inflammatory properties for the antioxidants in cinnamon. Other researchers involved in the study are Dr. Marilyn M. Polansky of the USDA-ARS Beltsville (Maryland) Human Nutrition Research Center, and Dr. Perry J. Blackshear of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Two final bits of advice from Dr. Anderson: First, eating great quantities of cinnamon straight from the can is not a good idea. Table cinnamon is not water soluble, meaning it can build up in the body with unknown consequences. Second, the powered cinnamon has another limitation. Dr. Anderson's personal 60-point decline in total cholesterol occurred only after he switched from sprinkling cinnamon on his breakfast cereal to taking it in a capsule. Saliva contains a chemical harmful to cinnamon.


So spice up your life! B)

Edited by Rogerdodger, 09 April 2006 - 10:08 AM.


#2 Rogerdodger

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Posted 09 April 2006 - 10:01 PM

The suspicious part of me wonders why the need for capsules.
Is this just one more high priced offering for the "supplement" stores?

After all the accidental discovery was made when people ate apple pie with ground cinnamon spice, NOT CAPSULES.

"We were looking at the effects of common foods on blood sugar," he told New Scientist. One was the American favourite, apple pie, which is usually spiced with cinnamon. "We expected it to be bad. But it helped," he says.


Anyway, for breakfast I made some nice cinnamon toast with pure butter and the finest sugar.
Sure enough, I did not have one diabetic coma all day. ;)