Super spice - Vital signs: news and trends for your well-being - Brief Article

Natural Health, March, 2004

Sprinkling cinnamon on your morning cereal, toast or coffee may give you more than just a flavor boost: A study in the journal Diabetes Care shows that a healthy sprinkling of cinnamon daily could improve cholesterol and glucose levels. Sixty adults with type 2 diabetes added 1 to 6 grams of cinnamon to their normal diets each day. After 40 days, those who ate the spice reduced their glucose levels by 18 percent to 29 percent and their LDL ("bad") cholesterol by 7 percent to 27 percent.

Cinnamon contains compounds that help insulin bring glucose to the cells that need it, says study author Richard Anderson, Ph.D., research biochemist for the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Maryland. By adding a half-teaspoon to their daily diets, people with diabetes may help stave off complications related to impaired glucose metabolism, including fatigue, blurred vision and increased risk of kidney failure. What's more, Anderson says that taking cinnamon daily may help prevent type 2 diabetes in those at risk for the disease.

cinnamon tea

Vasant Lad, director of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, N.M., recommends this spicy blend for keeping your cholesterol in check. Drink it once in the morning and once in the evening.

1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon trikatu (a blend
  of ginger, black pepper and
  long pepper; available from
  most Indian grocery
  stores, health-food stores,
  ayurvedic practitioners and
  ayurvedicbulkherbs.com)
1 cup hot water
1 teaspoon honey

1. Mix cinnamon and trikatu
in water, then stir and steep
for five minutes.

2. Once the tea has cooled,
add honey.