Treating Diabetes with herbs from your spice rack

The wonders of treating ailments with Cinnamon.

Southeast Asia is known for its cinnamon.and the uses for Cinnamon is quite popular. From treating a variety of ailments like kidney, liver and hearing problems, to keeping meat from spoiling, and cinnamon aids in keeping diseases from spreading due to its antibacterial properties.

Now the next drug in your medicine cabinet might come from the spice aisle of your local grocery store

Today Cinnamon is used for weight control and Type II diabetes. The Bellville Nutrition Center is under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Their 2003 study found that cinnamon lowered glucose, triglycerides and LDL cholosterol, as well as improved diabetes problems.

Although research is still preliminary, doctors and researchers are getting excited about the diabetes and cholesterol-fighting potential of cinnamon.

Cinnamon probably "can't harm in small doses, it may help and it's not adding calories," said Melinda Maryniuk, a senior dietician at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

A small study completed last year on the possible health benefits of cinnamon was "very exciting and promising," according to Dr. Andrew Greenberg, director of the obesity metabolism laboratory at Tufts University, who is so intrigued he has begun studying it himself.

The 40-day study, of 60 people in Pakistan with Type 2 diabetes, found that one gram a day of cinnamon -- one-fourth of a teaspoon twice daily -- significantly lowered the subjects' blood sugar, triglycerides (fatty acids in the blood), LDL (or "bad") cholesterol, and total cholesterol.


"Cinnamon is a lot less effective than statins" at lowering cholesterol levels in the blood, according to Dr. Frank Sacks, a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Statins have been tested in rigorous studies on 70,000 people for five years or more. Compared to that, he said, the research on cinnamon is weak.

"There are certainly substances in plants that have very strong biological effects, so the concept is fine," he said. And plant derivatives "are being intensively researched at many places -- that's a hot topic."

But it's also "a little weird," he said, that the USDA study found that the beneficial effects of cinnamon lasted for at least 20 days after people stopped taking it. "I don't know of any drug or product whose effects persist for 20 days."

A professor of nutrition at the Public School of Nutrition at the Harvard school of Public Health was amazed at the long-lasting results. Dr. Anderson of the US Dept of Agriculture said, "Cinnamon makes cells more sensitive to insulin." An active ingredient in cinnamon, proanthocyanidin, worms its way inside cells, where it activates the insulin receptor. Once this receptor is activated, whether by insulin or cinnamon, chemical reactions occur allowing the cell to use energy from sugar.

Also, top scorers in the antioxidant are clove and cinnamon. An early study by Richard Anderson of the USDA showed that as little as a half teaspoon of cinnamon a day significantly reduced blood sugar in people with diabetes, and that there are benefits to cinnamon (and to the other spices) that go beyond "just" reducing blood sugar.

Finally, there may be an indirect health benefit to be had from cinnamon, according to Taiwanese scientists writing in the July 14 issue of Agriculture and Food Chemistry. Cinnamon oil, they found, kills mosquito larvae more effectively than DEET, a common pesticide and mosquito repellent. Cinnamon contains sulphur, the seventh mose prevalent substance in human's and dog's bodies. Dogs love cinnamon. Fleas, ticks, flies and mosquitoes hate sulphur.

In 2004, the Tiwanese people found that if they sprinkled cinnamon around the island, it killed mosquito larvae more effectively than DEET,(a common pesticide.) On July, 2004 a recommendation was made by the Agriculture and Food Chemistry Dept. in Taiwan to use cinnamon to repel insects. Yet, if the dogs found the cinnamon and ate it, it wouldn't hurt them. Dogs love cinnamon.
Testing against adult mosquitotes is just beginning.

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Author: Wray R. Herring
http://www.diabeteslearningctr.com/
Wray has first hand knowledge and experience in caring for
some one with Diabetes.
For Additional information and products click on http://www.diabeteslearningctr.com
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