Is Cinnamon Helpful to Lower Blood Sugar Levels?
There is no shortage of advertising on the Internet that suggests that cinnamon just might cure Type 2 diabetes. That’s an overstatement, but many Type 2’s will find cinnamon to be helpful. The earliest studies of cinnamon for Type 2 diabetes were conducted in Pakistan by research teams working with Pakistani Institutions and the US Department of Agriculture. These very first studies found that cinnamon was practically a miracle cure. The kind of cinnamon used in the Pakistani study, Cinnamomum cassia, is not the kind of cinnamon used in baked goods in the West. This cinnamon a slightly bitter variety of a different species of the herb used in curry. When Type 2 diabetics who did not take any other medication at all used cinnamon for 42 days: • fasting blood sugar levels fell 18 to 29 per cent. For most Type 2 diabetics, this would be something in the range of 30 to 50 mg/dL, or 1.7 to 2.8 mmol/L • the “bad” LDL cholesterol was lowered 7 to 27 per cent • total cholesterol levels fell 1
