Cinnamon?

[Puppypants]

I'm sure I've missed a thread or two regarding cinnamon, so I apologiza if my question is redundant.

I recently tried a flax seed muffin (from a recipe I found here) that has a heavy dose of cinnamon as one of the ingredients. When I have two of the small muffins for breakfst, my blood sugar is well below the maximums set by my doc for post meal readings. Could it be the cinnamon? The effect seems to last all day -I even had 1/2 of a sweet potato and a small piece of bread with dinner last night, and my 2-hour reading was 94! This has happened pretty consistently for about a week and a half now, since adding the muffins as my breakfast food of choice.

I am thinking of adding cinnamon as a supplement - what dose is recommended? Are there different levels of quality in the supplements available? Any info is greatly appreciated!

[xMenace]

You have to be able to rule out all other causes such as other foods, activity, sickness, stress, sunspots, etc. I think you need a bit ore structured testing before making any conclusions. I eat Flax bread as it is very BG friendly. Try the muffins without cinnamon. Sweet potatos are also quite friendly.

Household cinnamon is usually the wrong type. You need 'cassia' cinnamon. I've never looked into sources or doses.

[princesslinda]

I sprinkle cinnamon on anything I can....or put cinnamon sticks in my tea. I took cinnamon capsules for awhile, but they cause me to have heartburn. I did notice that when I didn't have the cinnamon, my levels were a little higher. It's so easy to add, whether it really works or not, that I do it.

There's a recipe for cinnamon tea you can find by googling "cinnamon tea" that's quite good.

[duck]

I am at a point where I can say for certain Cinnamon doesn't do a thing for me. I recently did a month's worth of New Chapter Cinnamonforce and there was no effect I could see from it. Maybe I need to find a supplement that has what X-Menace mentioned in it, but yeah, nothing, nada zip.

HOWEVER, we are all different. Who knows if my diet supplies whatever is necessary to allow cinnamon to work for me. You seem to be onto something for yourself, so I say as long as it is reproduceable and has no bad effect on you, keep it up.

[Lynpenny]

I don't know if cinnamon lowers anything. I don't think anyone really does know. I know people who swear by it. I like the taste of it in my oatmeal so I use it. I do not carry a box of it in my purse and sprinkle it on everything at the cafe like my friend. Just use it and enjoy it. If you think it lowers your BG then it will.

[wiseguy]

Household cinnamon is usually the wrong type. You need 'cassia' cinnamon. I've never looked into sources or doses.
Actually, cinnamomum cassia is the type of cinnamon commonly available in the U.S. and is what is found on your grocery store shelves.

From Wikipedia:
"Most of the spice sold as cinnamon in the United States and Canada (where true cinnamon is still generally unknown) is actually cassia."

[deb wardle]

Hi Iv'e just read a book, about diabetes and diet, and it says that cinnamon is very good at reducing BG, It recommends having it with most foods but especially with your oats in the morning. I havnt tried it yet, but I'll give anything a go.

Deb

[volleyball]

I dose cinnamon on lots of things. I like the taste. I do my management without pills so maybe thats why it seems to have a positive effect on me. I think loose is better than pills. Also, it is suggested that you take cinnamon several times a day as opposed to once a day

[xMenace]

Actually, cinnamomum cassia is the type of cinnamon commonly available in the U.S. and is what is found on your grocery store shelves.

From Wikipedia:
"Most of the spice sold as cinnamon in the United States and Canada (where true cinnamon is still generally unknown) is actually cassia."


I always get that wrong :vollkomme

[Puppypants]

Wow - I'm a little confused, but I think if the flax muffins are what's helping, I'll stick with them for awhile and continue my testing 4 or 5 times a day,a nd see what happens. All I do know for sure is that I sure am pleased that my blood sugars rarely go over 110, no matter when I test!

[xMenace]

Wow - I'm a little confused, but I think if the flax muffins are what's helping, I'll stick with them for awhile and continue my testing 4 or 5 times a day,a nd see what happens. All I do know for sure is that I sure am pleased that my blood sugars rarely go over 110, no matter when I test!


That is the acid test eh?

[Spartan300]

My dad and I both dose cinammon and we both see a difference. I haven't done a "scientific" study, but I've tried a week with and without it. It made, on average, a 20 point difference. I used 1 tsp spread over my cereal in the morning.

I did say not scientific, so I didn't eat the exact same thing both weeks, but exercise and med doses were the same.

[Puppypants]

That is the acid test eh?

Not sure what you mean...should I be doing some other from of testing or study on what the cinnamon does for me?

[xMenace]

Your BG levels are the ultimate proof. Regardless of what I or anyone else says, if you can prove to yourself that something works, then do it. My point above is you can't rely on your testing if too many variables are involved and you can't repeat it. And there are so many variables :(

If I was going to test cinnamon, I'd eat a standard meal for a few days and record my post prandials every hour for 4 to 6 hours. I'd try to keep all activity the same. I'd then do the same testing with a bunch of cinnamon added. I'd do this for at least three days, maybe more. I'd probably not test for any days where my BGs weren't very close to target. Trends can be adjusted, but IMO if you are off, there's some other variable at work you haven't accounted for. My DP for example can wreak havoc on my whole morning if it decides to have one of those sunspot days -- I just don't do special testing those days.

One variable that's difficult to remove is the meter variability. It can hide any small tryue fluctiations so they are unrecognizeable. I'd almost do three readings each test for something like this. I'd then plot everything on graphs and look for obvious differences.

[xMenace]

My dad and I both dose cinammon and we both see a difference. I haven't done a "scientific" study, but I've tried a week with and without it. It made, on average, a 20 point difference. I used 1 tsp spread over my cereal in the morning.

I did say not scientific, so I didn't eat the exact same thing both weeks, but exercise and med doses were the same.

If you average your current weeks, what kinds of variances are you seeing?

[Puppypants]

Thanks for the advise, but I think all that charting and graphing might raise my BG!! ;) I am a quality coordinator by trade, and keep all kinds of charts and stat data, and carrying that kinda work home might be too much!

As long as my numbers stay this low, I don't feel like I should upset the apple cart and change anything right now!

[georgepds]

Here is an article on it.
GI News (http://ginews.blogspot.com/2007/08/low-gi-food-of-month.html)

The short answer is 6 g of Cinnamon cassia (the kind available in the US). Read the comments below the article, the articles itself is a bit screwy and misleading. The guy they quote likes "true Cinnamon" whereas all the documented research used Cinnamon cassia

[pooh3465]

Cinnamon is actually very good at bringing your blood sugars down and they sell it as a suplement at wal mart. I first heard about it on the diabetes talk show they have on my cable station. The man talking about it was a doctor and his wife has diabetes so he has done a lot of research on it. The station was trying to sell a book he wrote. I never bought that but I did try his suggestion of the cinnamon capsules and he was not joking it shot my sugars down really fast. I took it at breakfast and before lunch I was having a reaction so you may have to do a bit of research yourself on how you will react to it but it really does work.

[pdxdennisj]

I think this article from MyDiabetesCentral.com covers the science angle:

"Cinnamon Update
by David Mendosa
Monday, May 22, 2006
Most scientists won’t admit it, but some of them are a lot like journalists. Some people in both groups seem to get their jollies and make their reputations by debunking the work of others.

Cinnamon is now important enough for glucose control that the debunkers have jumped on it. A group of five scientists in Maastricht, The Netherlands, carefully studied the effects of cinnamon and found that it doesn’t work.

They found that “Cinnamon supplementation does not improve glycemic control in postmenopausal type 2 diabetes patients”. The Journal of Nutrition published their research in its April 2006 issue.


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Specifically, they contradicted “Cinnamon improves glucose and lipids of people with type 2 diabetes” by Richard A. Anderson and his associates at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Maryland and in Peshawar, Pakistan. Earlier I have written about Dr. Anderson’s work on this blog and my website.

The Dutch scientists used the same type of cinnamon, cinnamomum cassia (popularly known as Chinese cinnamon, but from Indonesia), as Dr. Anderson’s group. They used 1.5 grams per day, 50 percent more than the other group’s lowest effective dose. Both studies met the highest research standards of being double-blind, placebo-controlled trials. Subsequently, however, the debunkers have themselves been debunked. A group of six scientists at the University of Hannover in Germany found that cinnamon does reduce blood glucose.

These scientists studied the “Effects of a cinnamon extract on plasma glucose, HbA, and serum lipids in diabetes mellitus type 2”. The European Journal of Clinical Investigation published this research in its May 2006 issue.

Again, it seems to be excellent science as it is also a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. They did, however, use twice as much cinnamon as the Dutch group, 3 grams per day.

If this leaves you confused, you are not alone. We can’t get scientists to agree any better than we can anyone who writes.

Still, I doubt if anybody is totally relying on cinnamon for diabetes control. A nutritious diet, weight loss, exercise, and prescription drugs are the usual order in which we implement our control strategies. Herbs, like cinnamon, with their erratic and less well tested effects, are purely supplemental.

If you like the taste of cinnamon, as I do, it doesn’t matter what the debunkers write. By all means continue to sprinkle it on some of the foods you eat. It may or may not help us to control our blood glucose. But we know how to do that anyway."

[xMenace]

Cinnamon questionable as diabetes therapy (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C10%5C01%5Cstory_1-10-2007_pg6_17)

Though some studies have hinted that cinnamon may aid blood sugar control, it’s too soon to recommend the spice for people with diabetes, according to researchers.

Their study of 43 adults with type 2 diabetes found that cinnamon supplements did nothing to change blood sugar, insulin or cholesterol levels over three months.

The findings stand in contrast to some past studies that have suggested cinnamon may help with diabetes control. In one study of people with type 2 diabetes, for example, researchers found that those who added some cinnamon to their daily diets had a dip in their blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Lab research suggests that cinnamon may make body cells more sensitive to insulin, a hormone that shuttles sugar from the blood into cells to be used for energy. Type 2 diabetes develops when cells lose their sensitivity to insulin. There’s also evidence that cinnamon slows digestion, which can temper the blood sugar rise that follows a meal.

In the new study, researchers at the University of Oklahoma assigned type 2 diabetics to take either cinnamon capsules or a placebo every day for three months. The cinnamon group took two capsules a day, each of which contained 500 milligrams of the spice. The placebo group took capsules containing wheat flour.

In the end, there were no differences in the groups’ average levels of blood sugar, insulin or cholesterol, according to the researchers, led by Dr Steve Blevins. The reason for the conflicting findings from this and earlier studies may have to do with differences in the study groups, Blevins and his colleagues explain.

Most patients in the current study, for example, were on various diabetes drugs; in an earlier study that found cinnamon to lower blood sugar, no patients were on any of these drugs.

The researchers conclude that more studies are needed to see how various factors — like overall diet and medication use — affect any benefits of cinnamon in managing diabetes. “Until then,” they write, “cinnamon cannot be generally recommended for treatment of type 2 diabetes in an American population.” reuters

[Scarlett]

Wow-whenI was writing a lot way back when-I remember posting the same question since I'd been having the same effect with cinnamon-now I use it daily in my coffee but I'm not nearly as inquisitive as some here-I like it! That's all...some days my BS's are high, some they're normal and others are low-......the more fiber though...(now there's the ticket!!!)