I read the news report, and I also read the abstract from Diabetes Care, and I also looked at a discussion in a blog with an author who can afford the $15 dollar subscription to read the whole article (I personally find this OUTRAGEOUS) both additional articles are linked below.
Effect of Cinnamon on Glucose Control and Lipid Parameters -- Baker et al. 31 (1): 41 -- Diabetes Care Junkfood Science: Cinnamon and sugar ? blood sugar, that is
The conclusion drawn by the authors was
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Cinnamon does not appear to improve A1C, FBG, or lipid parameters in patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
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Which is kinda blunt and to the point really. There is no evidence that cinnamon works.
Things to note.
the 5 studies were randomised double-blinded trials - the highest quality and least susceptible to biases.
the quantities of cinnamon ingested were between 1g and 6g daily (i.e. rather a lot). Would suggest that sprinkling cinnamon on your food to taste is even less likely to do anything. However it does taste nice, and I for one will be continuing to add it to my food.
re-reading the news article again, I thought overall that it was well written in the sense that it fairly accurately reflected the results that the researchers found (which I personally find astonishing)
the headline was
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Cinnamon Does Not Control Blood Sugar Or Fat Levels
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which is quite close to the results - although they could not claim that cinnamon didn't work only that it did not appear to work.
they did say something stupid in the article though
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"The preponderance of evidence currently available does not suggest that cinnamon has the ability to decrease a person's risk of heart disease by helping them control their diabetes or lower their cholesterol,"
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Duh? I guess this is why volleyball presumed that the study was about heart disease. The one thing the study did not investigate was heart disease - the claim can not be substantiated or inferred from the results.
