Cinnamon is among various options to help with diabetes, marked by high blood sugar, we’ll talk about all that shortly.
Diabetes affects millions of people each year, and some of the complications are fatal. The market trends are staggering as the global diabetes drug market is expected to exceed 76 billion dollars by the year 2024. It’s definitely a business for those who provide medications, injections and treatments. And it’s definitely scary to those who suffer from it and worry about complications such as vision loss, kidney failure, heart disease, and nerve pain.
There are many natural remedies, as well as dietary interventions. You can use my search box for those articles. Traditional medications include those that attempt to correct blood glucose, insulin sensitivity, beta cell function or inflammatory compounds. They only go so far, and they cause serious nutrient-depletions (ie drug mugging).
One quick side note. A long time ago, probably 10 years ago, I wrote publicly about how statins could lead to hyperglycemia, which mistakenly gets diagnosed as “diabetes” and treated as such with all the medications, special diets and restrictions. There have been many studies about the statin-induced hyperglycemia over the years, it is well-documented.
You may be interested in my other article, Can Vitamin C Replace Statins? 3 Potential Benefits For Cardiovascular Health.
Unfortunately, some more research today proves I had every right to warn you this past decade. The March 2019 issue of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology just published an article called, “Associations of Statin Use with Glycaemic Traits and Incident Type 2 Diabetes.”
In the study, researchers investigated the correlation between statin use and glycemic control. They followed 9,535 individuals who were initially free from diabetes at the onset of the study. during the study period which started way back in 1997 and ended in 2012. They found that use of statins was associated with a 38% higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, and was most profound in people who were overweight to begin with.
Statin cholesterol medications can easily predispose a person to developing diabetes. Perhaps you have seen this side effect of diabetes yourself. After a few months or years, you are on the diabetes merry-go-round, and taking medications for diabetes, in addition to your statin drug. The offending agents are not just statins, there are many prescription and over-the-counter medications that negatively affect your blood sugar.
What’s so weird but true, is that statins are intended to reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease, yet long-term diabetes (hyperglycemia) increases the risk of that very problem! If you’d like to read my other article on this topic, CLICK HERE to read, How Statins Cause Diabetes.
Antivirals
Weird but true, people treated with antivirals slashed their risk of diabetes by half. The treatment used was a combination of Interferon and Ribavirin and the patient population studied had Hepatitis C infection.
Those people who were not medicated had higher risk of diabetes development, equating to about 20% of the participants.
Those treated with the medication exhibited an incidence of just 10%. So the researchers found that these specific antivirals for Hepatitis C reduced the incidence of subsequent diabetes, and that benefit appears to be most useful in people with advanced liver cirrhosis or fibrosis.
Cinnamon Helps Diabetes
Cinnamon comes from scraping the inner bark of cinnamon trees.
Research has suggested that cinnamon, which belongs to the genus Cinnamomum, might have beneficial effects on blood sugar control. It is believed that cinnamon can improve insulin sensitivity and reduce fasting blood sugar levels, which are crucial factors in managing both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
It’s been used to help with symptoms of the common cold as well as common infections. A new meta-analysis which reviews many pieces of scientific literature has concluded that supplementation with cinnamon reduces blood sugar levels by approximately 19 mg/dL. It may not impact A1C or insulin levels.
By the way, the active ingredients in cinnamon can help your brain. If you’d like to learn more about health benefits of cinnamon, CLICK HERE to read my article, How to Choose the Right Cinnamon for your Health.
While some studies support the use of cinnamon as a supplementary treatment, it should not replace prescribed diabetes medications or insulin.
Pomegranate
Your kidneys are the filtration system for your body. When they don’t work well, toxins build up in your body and make you itch and lead to swollen feet and ankles, irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, fatigue, confusion and poor appetite.
It is important to notice these signs before the condition progresses. New research shows that pomegranate seeds (and peel) can protect against diabetic nephropathy.
If you’d like a recipe using pomegranate, here’s my Amazing Antioxidant Smoothie.
You can eat pomegranate seeds easily, and maybe that’s all you need. As for pomegranate peel, this is commercially available as a purified, powdered item, however be careful because there are sometimes allergic reactions, similar to any fruit peel.
B Vitamins
People with diabetes often experience painful neuropathy all over their body, especially in their hands and feet. The pins and needles, and burning sensations are very difficult to treat. B vitamins help to form myelin, the protective coating on your nerves. A new animal study also points to Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) as helpful in reducing visceral pain and neuropathy.
B vitamin deficiency can play a role in your health. To learn more, CLICK HERE to read my article, Hypothyroidism Often Mistaken for OCD, Depression or Anxiety.
The research was published in the February 2019 issue of Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. This conclusion was derived by the fact that vitamin C restriction led to increases in pain levels. Regarding vitamin C, please read my other article, Can Vitamin C Replace Statins? 3 Potential Benefits For Cardiovascular Health.
The researchers concluded with, “Together, our data unveil the critical role of ascorbic acid in regulating somatic and visceral pain sensitivity and support accumulating clinical evidence for the usefulness of ascorbic acid in pain management.”
Heart Rate App
I have an app on my iPhone called “Instant Heart Rate” by Azumio and I use it to monitor my pulse when I’m exercising, or sometimes just for fun. You put your fingertip on the flashlight and camera.
This app was used recently when researchers studied 54,269 people to see if they could detect diabetes. As you know, diabetes is a big risk factor for heart attack. The smartphone camera and flashlight detect your pulse, and this information was plugged into their special secret algorithm to see if the heart rate could predict diabetes.
They correctly identified people with diabetes in more than 72% of the cases. It was right quite a bit! More results will be presented later in March. The app is available now if you have a smartphone.
Suzy Cohen, has been a licensed pharmacist for over 30 years and believes the best approach to chronic illness is a combination of natural medicine and conventional. She founded her own dietary supplement company specializing in custom-formulas, some of which have patents. With a special focus on functional medicine, thyroid health and drug nutrient depletion, Suzy is the author of several related books including Thyroid Healthy, Drug Muggers, Diabetes Without Drugs, and a nationally syndicated column.
