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Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Jacobus Rex on December 06, 2005, 02:53:45 PM

Title: Blood sugar and cinnamon use question
Post by: Jacobus Rex on December 06, 2005, 02:53:45 PM
Anyone ever use cinnamon supplements to try to help your blood sugar levels?  I'm wondering if it seems to work?
Title: Blood sugar and cinnamon use question
Post by: Sindawe on December 06, 2005, 03:12:31 PM
I would think that the important this is does it work?  Not does it seem to work. Cheesy  

I've never heard of the concept before your post, but apparently there may be a metabolic basis for this.
Quote
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.

To see if it would work in people, Alam Khan, who was a postdoctoral fellow in Anderson's lab, organised a study in Pakistan. Volunteers with Type 2 diabetes were given one, three or six grams of cinnamon powder a day, in capsules after meals.

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.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4413
Title: Blood sugar and cinnamon use question
Post by: onions! on December 06, 2005, 03:38:50 PM
Now that's damned interesting!I work closely w/ two Type II fellows & I'm going to print that for them.

I wonder what their Drs. would/will say.

Thanks!
Title: Blood sugar and cinnamon use question
Post by: HForrest on December 06, 2005, 10:07:35 PM
I have heard before on multiple occasions that cinnamon is good- specifically for blood sugar regulation, but in general as well. It seems cinnamon is easy enough to sprinkle on top of certain things- might as well try it.