During the holidays, many of us eat too much sugar and too many carbs—despite our best intentions. Fortunately, research shows that simply starting the day with one popular spice from Asia in your coffee can help control your blood sugar during this most tempting time of year…and year-round.
Plus, it has many other key health benefits as well.
So, let’s jump right in…
Another healing spice that hails from the East
Like the other traditional holiday spices I’ve written about this week, cinnamon is a “gift from the East.” Specifically, it comes from the Spice Islands of southeast Asia. And it helped anchor the spice trade among historic civilizations in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Cinnamon also helped establish early American ports—such as Boston and Baltimore—as economic powerhouses in the New World. And to this day, Baltimore is still home to McCormick Spices. (Of course, Baltimore is also home to OmniVista Health, publisher of my spicy Daily Dispatch and Insiders’ Cures monthly newsletter.)
The most common form of cinnamon, cassia cinnamon, comes from the bark of the Cinnamomum cassia tree. The dried bark curls up into the characteristic curlicue of a cinnamon “stick,” which you can enjoy in hot drinks or alcoholic beverages, like the hot toddy I told you about earlier this week. You can also grind the stick to make the dry powder, which is found in just about every kitchen in America.
Of course, as I mentioned earlier, cinnamon also has many health benefits…
Holiday spice normalizes insulin activity and improves digestion
Research shows cinnamon blocks inflammation-promoting compounds in the body. It’s also well-known for controlling blood sugar. Specifically, it can help:
- Encourage normal insulin activity
- Tame sugar cravings
- Make you feel fuller after a meal
- Prevent chronic insulin resistance brought on by a high sugar diet
- Prevent long-term damage to tissues due to chronic high blood sugar and insulin resistance
Research shows cinnamon may even outperform the most well-established diabetes drugs. In fact, in my view, we can now say with confidence that cinnamon, along with a healthy, balanced diet and regular moderate exercise, can prevent and reverse Type II diabetes, an epidemic that affects millions of Americans.
Other research shows taking cinnamon can also help to:
- Lower cholesterol
- Improve digestion
- Thin the blood
- Prevent blood clots
Most of the studies showing these benefits used medicinal preparations of cinnamon. But even the common ground spice found at the grocery store can be effective.
Though, here’s an important note…
If you take a blood thinner drug, you should NOT use cassia cinnamon, the most common form found in grocery stores. Instead, make sure to use the other variety of cinnamon called Ceylon—just be sure to double check the label. It’ll give you the health benefits without potential drug interaction side effects.
When it comes to dosage, I suggest enjoying cinnamon liberally in food quantities. Simply scoop a teaspoon or two into your favorite beverage. You can also add this delightful spice to your steel-cut oatmeal, stews, meats, fruit, and vegetable dishes, particularly with other healthy spices.
Of course, in addition to cinnamon, many other natural options can help manage your blood sugar over the holidays and all year round—including ginger, chromium, and vanadium.
You can learn all about these effective, commonsense, drug-free strategies for optimal blood sugar control in my online learning protocol, the Integrative Protocol for Defeating Diabetes. To learn more about this learning tool, or to enroll today, simply click here.
Source:
“Cinnamon: Potential Role in the Prevention of Insulin Resistance, Metabolic Syndrome, and Type 2 Diabetes,” J Diabetes Sci Technol, 2010; 4(3): 685–693. doi.org/10.1177/193229681000400324