Cinnamon

I eat at least a teaspoon of cinnamon every day. It’s a strong antioxidant and antimicrobial that protects your digestive tract and even helps prevent tooth decay and diabetes. Besides, it tastes great in smoothies. I smoked for many years, and my lungs are a priority. I’ve had early-stage lung cancer which I cured with diet and herbs. I use cinnamon in the smoothie I drink for my lungs. Here’s the recipe:
The peel of an organic red delicious or granny smith apple. (I eat the apple flesh while making the smoothie. However, the skin is where the good stuff is. Red delicious and granny smith apples optimize lung function and even help the lungs heal.)

  1. A cup of blueberries.
  2. A teaspoon of cinnamon.
  3. About a cup of unsweetened organic pomegranate or cranberry juice. The cranberry juice can be a bit sour, but it’s very good for you. If you can’t live with sour, add a little stevia to taste!

 

BAD Cinnamon!

There are several varieties of cinnamon, and they aren’t all equally good for you. In fact, the variety most common in the U.S. and some other developed countries can cause liver disease if eaten in high doses or over a long period of time. Of the many cinnamon varieties, four are used for food or as a spice:

  • Ceylon Cinnamon
  • Cassia Cinnamon
  • Saigon Cinnamon
  • Korintie Cinnamon

Because they are very similar in taste and appearance, Cassia, Saigon, and Korintie cinnamons are all commonly called “Cassia.” Cassia cinnamon bark is very hard, about an eighth of an inch thick, and has a strong, spicy flavor that sometimes borders on bitter. It is rolled loosely, with a hollow center. It is inexpensive and for that reason is usually the cinnamon sold in the U.S. and some other countries.

While it has most of the benefits associated with “True,” cinnamon, it also contains a chemical called Coumarin (not curcumin), which is dangerous if taken in high doses or over long periods of time.

This stuff is so hard it will ruin your spice grinder if you buy it as “sticks” and try to grind it yourself.

My advice: just don’t take cassia cinnamon as a supplement and minimize how much you eat as a food.

Ceylon cinnamon is often called “true” cinnamon because it was the cinnamon first brought to the west by merchant traders. It has very low levels of Coumarin and is safe at high doses or over time.

 

GOOD Cinnamon!

Ceylon cinnamon bark is very thin. It is rolled tightly with no hollow center and is brittle and thin enough that it often crumbles in your hands. It has a milder, sweet flavor that may leave people in the U.S. wondering if it is real cinnamon. Unfortunately, we have grown up eating the phony stuff! This is the real thing.

It grinds nicely in the inexpensive little spice/coffee grinders available at almost  any store that sells small appliances.

So, where can you buy it? In Mexican stores. Cinnamon is very popular in Mexican foods, and, unlike in the U.S., Mexican recipes were developed using Ceylon cinnamon.

Most Mexican stores sell it in bulk bundles and it is usually very inexpensive. I pay about eight dollars for a bundle that lasts me two or three months, and my wife and I both eat lots of it. I grind up a few sticks, put it in a pint jar, and we enjoy whenever we want.

Health Benefits

Cinnamon is primarily known for its antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. It provides the following health benefits:

  • Lowers blood sugar
  • Protects against and may even help cure diabetes
  • Antioxidant
  • Broad-spectrum antimicrobial
  • Improves memory and learning ability
  • Protects the liver

Lowers Blood Sugar and May Help Cure Diabetes

Cinnamon lowers blood sugar through several mechanisms. It has been reported by Ranasinghe et al. to reduce glucose absorption after a meal by inhibiting the enzymes that metabolize carbohydrates. It also stimulates the cells to use circulating carbohydrates, stimulates glucose metabolism, promotes healthy glucose storage, inhibits the creation of carbohydrates from amino acids, and stimulates insulin release.

Its antioxidant properties have been shown to protect pancreas cells and even stimulate new cell development.

Ranasinghe also reported that it helps limit the weight loss associated with diabetes, reduces Fasting Blood Glucose, and has beneficial effects on diabetic neuropathy and nephropathy.

Cinnamon has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol, which means that it helps keep arteries and veins healthy.

It is important to note that Researchers at the University of Limerick in Ireland showed in 1978 that a single dose of cinnamon didn’t provide any blood glucose or lipid level benefits. You have to take it for a while to reap the rewards.

Lowers Blood Pressure

Several studies on rats have shown that cinnamon is a vascular relaxant that helps restore stiffened arteries and reduces blood pressure in a dose-dependent manner.

Antioxidant

All cinnamon extracts have been shown to have varying antioxidant properties.

They reduce lipid peroxidation and scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, my research suggests that extracts made using different solvents and from different parts of the plant show widely differing results.

Researchers at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan tested the ability of concentrates from twigs to moderate type II diabetes and control oxidation. They found that an acetone concentrate of ground twigs was stronger at both controlling blood sugar and oxidation than other parts of the plant.

Mancini et. al. in Brazil found that extracts made using cinnamon bark and methanol were extremely high in antioxidant activity. Water extracts were the second most powerful in this study.

Another study tested the antioxidant activity of dried fruit extracts, and found that extracts made using ethyl acetate were strongest.

What all this tells me is that the best thing to do is eat the spice itself, and ensure that you are getting the benefit of all of the natural chemicals in cinnamon.

Antimicrobial
In all of the years I’ve been reading and writing scientific reports I have never seen a list of bugs and fungus that an antibiotic or natural antimicrobial kills as long as the list Ranasinghe et al. claim cinnamon kills. I tried counting the microbes in their list but reached 150 and gave up.

Just to make sure I then did a search using “cinnamon, antimicrobial” in PubMed, the U.S. government’s website listing research projects, and found 180 different published research documents.
This doesn’t mean cinnamon will kill the bug you have, or bugs you get in the future, but it won’t hurt to include a teaspoonful along with your antimicrobial of choice.

Improves Memory and Learning Ability

Modi et al. at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, USA. found that by supplementing mice with cinnamon they were able to improve the memories and learning ability of the mice:

“However, oral treatment of cinnamon and NaB increased spatial memory consolidation-induced activation of CREB and expression of plasticity-related molecules in the hippocampus of poor-learning mice and converted poor learners into good learners. These results describe a novel property of cinnamon in switching poor learners to good learners via stimulating hippocampal plasticity.”

NaB is sodium benzoate, a constituent of cinnamon. CREB is a transcription factor (enzyme) that impacts the levels of Somatostatin, which is sometimes called the “growth hormone–inhibiting hormone” that controls the endocrine system.

Madhavadas et al. of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore India showed that cinnamon has similar effects on people with dementia by inducing dementia in rats using monosodium glutamate (Yes! Monosodium glutamate causes dementia!) and then treating them with cinnamon for fifteen months.

The researchers found that treatment with cinnamon improved insulin sensitivity, increased an enzyme that helps modulate phosphate functions, and improved the learning ability of the rats. They showed that the cinnamon treatment increased the neuron count in the DG sub-field of the hippocampus.

Protects the Liver and Arteries

Cinnamon protects the liver and by controlling the lipid levels in our liver, reduces the possibility of fatty liver and other diseases.

While there are several studies that confirm this function, Lopes et al. at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil found that while the lipid profile in rat’s bodies didn’t change, the mRNA induced levels of enzymes involved in the modulation of lipids in the white adipose tissue and liver were lower after treatment with cinnamon.

Dosage

As a supplement, 1 gram per day is the usual dose.

For diabetes, researchers have found that 1 to 6 grams per day, depending on body weight and current blood glucose levels, successfully treated diabetes. However, don’t try this alone. Consult with a natural health practitioner.

Warnings & Side Effects

High doses or long-term use of cassia cinnamon will damage your liver.