by Michael O’Leary
If you are among the 1 in 4 Americans considered to have prediabetes, you might want to think about increasing your cinnamon consumption. That’s the conclusion of an analysis of several studies of cinnamon and type 2 diabetes in the Journal of Medicinal Food.
Long considered a therapeutic plant, cinnamon is made from the bark of trees grown in China and throughout Southeast Asia. A number of studies have been conducted over the years looking at a variety of potential health benefits of cinnamon. (published site)

Paul Davis, a research nutritionist at the University of California Davis compiled the data from eight of these studies, including three new studies and looked at the effect on fasting blood glucose (FBG) in people at risk for type 2 diabetes.
He found that cinnamon intake was associated with a modest reduction in FBG.
“According to our results, it’s a modest effect of about 3 to 5 percent,” Davis told NPR news. This is about the level of reduction found in the older generation of diabetes drugs, he says.
While that isn’t enough to substitute for medications in people with type 2 diabetes, it may be worth considering for the millions of Americans with prediabetes. It isn’t likely to hurt and it could help, plus it tastes good.
There are two cautions for the study. It doesn’t answer the question of what is the optimal amount of cinnamon needed to lower blood sugar in a person with prediabetes, the other is what type of cinnamon is best.
There are many varieties and the most common variety found in your local grocery store is likely to be cassia contains high levels of coumarin, which can cause liver damage when consumed in large quantities in some people who are sensitive to coumarin.
How much is too much? The European Food Safety Authority says that a teaspoon of coumarin a day is the limit. How much coumarin is in a teaspoon of cinnamon is considerably lower than that.
To be safer, the variety Ceylon cinnamon contains very low levels of coumarin but it is more expensive.