Cinnamon gets mixed reviews

Thu., May 11, 2006

Peter H. Gott, M.D. The Spokesman-Review

Dear Dr. Gott: About a year ago, a local gentleman in Saginaw, Mich., was featured on the front page of The Saginaw News. He had no luck with normal treatments for high cholesterol and began taking a spoonful of cinnamon every morning.

His cholesterol levels dropped dramatically, as your reader reported to you in your column.

Since I refuse to take statin drugs for my cholesterol, I decided to try this. A short time after starting this “treatment” on my own, I developed severe diarrhea and the worst cramps I’ve ever had. After going to my family doctor and mentioning the cinnamon treatment, he suggested that maybe the cinnamon was upsetting my system.

I didn’t believe this, and I had a colonoscopy. Nothing out of the ordinary was found. I then quit the cinnamon, and my severe symptoms went away gradually.

About eight months after the original article, the paper ran a follow-up. It turns out the cinnamon had started giving him gastric upset, too, so he began putting the cinnamon in capsules and was eating eight to 10 capsules a day. He said he was able to avoid the burping and stomach upset he’d gotten before.

The heart specialist was interviewed once more by The Saginaw News and again attributed the man’s lower cholesterol levels to the cinnamon but said he still didn’t know what the connection was.

I see you’re going to try it yourself, so I thought I’d write you about my experience.

Dear Reader: Your letter confirms what my readers have written about and what has been my experience with cinnamon: Namely, it did not lower my cholesterol level after a month of treatment but did cause various gastrointestinal side effects. Therefore I’d have to give cinnamon a failing grade.

However, there have been new claims about cinnamon as a treatment to lower blood glucose levels in diabetics.

OK, folks, here we go again. Before relegating cinnamon to the spice rack, I will await your comments (obviously not part of a medical study) about the uses of cinnamon – aside from its obvious value in baked goods – related to blood sugar levels. Thanks in advance.

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