Cinnamon and Diabetes—Disease Type Appears to Matter

Science News Online ^ | April 14, 2007 | Janet Raloff

[neverdem]

Cinnamon—it's not just for perking up the flavor of pies and applesauce anymore. A teaspoonful of the spice can have medicinal properties, at least for most people with diabetes, several trials have indicated. However, the latest study identifies one population that cinnamon doesn't seem to benefit: individuals suffering from what was once referred to as juvenile diabetes.

"Ours is just one study," cautions team leader Kevin M. Curtis of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. It was also a small study. Just 57 teens completed the 3-month trial. However, Curtis notes emphatically, "we saw no benefit" in blood sugar control. If anything, he says, there were hints that people who were not getting the cinnamon might have fared better than those who did.

NOT SO HOT. Many teens with type 1 diabetes need help maintaining tight control of their blood sugar. Cinnamon isn't the answer, a new study finds, even though the spice appears to help moderate blood sugar in persons with type 2 diabetes.
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Insulin is a powerful hormone that the body needs to get energy—in the form of blood sugar, or glucose—into cells. Earlier studies tested cinnamon's potential to stabilize blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease in which the body makes ample insulin but cells don't respond adequately. Called insulin resistance, this condition typically occurs in people who are overweight and older than 40. However, with a rise in juvenile obesity in recent decades, a childhood epidemic of this type of diabetes is now under way.

Type 1 diabetes is a radically different disease. An autoimmune condition, it develops when the body mistakes insulin-secreting, or beta, cells for invaders and inappropriately attacks them. When enough beta cells die, the body can no longer make enough insulin to keep blood sugar in check. Its victims must regularly inject themselves with the hormone to survive.

The new 90-day study recruited adolescents 13 to 19 years old with type 1 disease and asked them to take a daily capsule that might contain cinnamon. Randomly assigned, half the volunteers got 1 gram of cinnamon a day, and the others instead received lactose, a complex sugar found in milk. All capsules looked the same and came packaged in identical pill bottles. During the trial, neither the teens nor the physicians administering the capsules learned who was consuming cinnamon.

Curtis' team selected adolescents for the study because their growth spurts and other body changes associated with puberty make tight control of blood sugar especially difficult. A lack of blood sugar control can result in serious complications, from heart disease to kidney failure, blindness, and even limb amputations.

The Dartmouth team looked primarily for changes in measures of hemoglobin A1C among the teens. A person's A1C reading indicates the proportion of red blood cells that have glucose stuck onto them. A high A1C reading indicates that the person's blood sugar has been too high for months. The researchers focused on this measurement, rather than periodic tests of blood sugar itself, because hemoglobin A1C "has clearly been the best predictor of complications in both type 1 and type 2 diabetics," Curtis told Science News Online.

At the end of the new study, teens taking both cinnamon and lactose had A1C values averaging roughly 8.75, according to a report in the April Diabetes Care.

By chance, the group assigned to receive lactose capsules for 3 months started the study with an average A1C value of 8.75. The teens getting the cinnamon capsules started the study with an average 8.4 A1C reading. Clearly, there was no advantage to getting the cinnamon treatment, Curtis says.

It's possible that the daily gram of cinnamon administered to the teens was too small to have a measurable effect in people with type 1 diabetes, the researchers say. On the other hand, the scientists note that this quantity was sufficient to improve glucose control in a 2003 study of people with type 2 disease (SN: 5/1/04, p. 282). More likely, Curtis' group concludes, is that "whatever effect cinnamon has on glucose uptake in type 2 diabetic subjects is not present in those with type 1 diabetes."

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If you would like to comment on this Food for Thought, please see the blog version.

References:

Altschuler, J.A. . . . and K.M. Curtis. 2007. The effect of cinnamon on A1C among adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Diabetes Care 30(April):813-816. Abstract available at http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/30/4/813.

Khan, A. . . . and R.A. Anderson. 2003. Cinnamon improves glucose and lipids of people with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care 26(December):3215-3218. Available at http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/26/12/3215.

Further Readings:

American Diabetes Association. What is diabetes? Available at http://www.diabetes.org/for-parents-and-kids/what-is-diabetes.jsp.

American Diabetes Association. Type 1 diabetes complications. Available at http://www.diabetes.org/type-1-diabetes/complications.jsp.

Anderson, R.A., et al. 2004. Isolation and characterization of polyphenol type-A polymers from cinnamon with insulin-like biological activity. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 52(Jan. 14):65-70. Abstract available at http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/
jafcau/2004/52/i01/abs/jf034916b.html.

Anderson, R.A. 2003. Chromium and insulin resistance. Nutrition Research Reviews 16(December):267-275. Abstract available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1079/NRR200366.

Raloff, J. 2004; Coffee, spices, wine. Science News 165(May 1):282-284. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040501/bob10.asp.

Sources:

American Diabetes Association
1701 North Beauregard Street
Alexandria, VA 22311
Web site: http://www.diabetes.org

Kevin M. Curtis
Department of Emergency Medicine
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lebanon, NH 03756

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070414/food.asp

From Science News, Vol. 171, No. 15, April 14, 2007

Copyright (c) 2007 Science Service. All rights reserved.

[muawiyah]

There are apparantly two schools of thought on diabetes. One school advocates lots of cereal (high in carbs), juice (high in carbs), and avoidance of fat.

The other school advocates low glycemic foods which are low in carbs, and high protein and oil vegetarianism.

That first diet is peddled by the USDA and the two organizations you name. The second diet is advocated by Kaiser and the Australian health industry and authorities.

I tend to follow Kaiser and eat lots of nuts interspersed with bouts of fat meat consumption.

[toast]

I’m a type 2 diabetic and use cinnamon lot on apple sauce and grits, etc., and have never really seen a difference in my blood sugars.

Apple sauce and grits are high carb foods.
You still have to watch what you eat.

[happygrl]

I got interested in the glycemic index, as my daughter has polycystic ovaries, which is a metabolic disease. I educated my self on the internet, and was shocked when all the doctors we saw were only interested in treating symtoms, mainly putting her on birth control pills to regulate her periods.

My own investigations indicated it was not a gynecological disease, but a metabolic problem, with insulin-resistance at its root and diabetes as an eventual outcome. So I my daughter followed a low carb, low glycemic diet and has had many of her pre-diabetic symptons vanished.

More recently, she has discovered that family practioners are treating this as the serious disease that it is, and heading off diabetes with medication and diet.

I have several diabetic friends who have repeatedly landed in the hospital , with their sugar levels unregulated, while following the ADA diet.

I encouraged them to have their carbs later in the day, and to have most of them via vegetables.

I have heard that your "cave man" diet with a lot of nuts, seeds, and meat, is very effective for many metablic diseases, including mineral-processing problems.

[Marysecretary]

I am careful with portions. I rarely eat grits anymore, mostly activia in the morning for my stomach problems. I may go with the capsules if I see them out somewhere when I’m shopping. M

[Marysecretary]

Thanks. I’ll do that. I’m on dialysis so I have to be careful what supplements I have. Can’t have calcium, for example, because my kidneys don’t clean it out of my system. I have calcification in my arteries, which has led to problems. Oh well, I’m still truckin....

[Marysecretary]

thanks. I’ll try that. M

[muawiyah]

The true "cave man" diet involves elimination of almost all sources of carbs, even low glycemic root crops.

This is my third year with diagnosed diabetes (and probably my fifth year with the problem) and am able to control it by diet alone.

What I am attempting to do is emulate what seems to have been the normal diet for the preponderance of my ancestors ~ greens in season, fresh berries, low starch fruits, nuts (for oil, starch, fiber, and vitamins), and red meat, eggs and plenty of chicken ~ including the fatty skin.

If I could I'd go harvest seals, whales and reindeer to boost my iron intake skyhigh (which would counter some inherited tendencies to shed iron like there's no tomorrow).

I have a very high cheese intake as well ~

As a consequence I have what amounts to a low cholesterol level, low triglyceride level, moderate A1C level, and only a minor amount of neuropathy.

So, what did I give up ~ well, everything made out of wheat, barley and rye. That includes soy sauce and those tasty malt vinegars, beer, croissants, most salad dressings, gravy, cajun cooking, pasta, etc., ~

Still, everything I eat tastes great. No doubt it'd put a "normal person" in the hospital!