Cinnamon, an insulin subsitute?

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http://nutraingredients-usa.com/news/news-NG.asp?n=51367-cinnamon-an-insulin

 

Cinnamon, an insulin subsitute?

 

4/14/2004 - Cinnamon may help alleviate type 2 diabetes by playing

the role of an insulin substitute, according to new US research.

 

Cinnamon has insulin-like activity and could also enhance the activity

of insulin, said Don Graves of the University of California, Santa

Barbara. " The latter could be quite important in treating those with

type 2 diabetes. Cinnamon has a bio-active component that we believe

has the potential to prevent or overcome diabetes, " he said.

 

Researchers at the UCSB and the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute in

Santa Barbara have been studying the effects of cinnamon on obese

mice, which have been fed water laced with cinnamon. Final results are

expected in about six months.

 

" More than 170 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, and for

many, drugs or other forms of treatment are unavailable. It may be

possible that many of these people could benefit from readily

available natural products such as cinnamon, " said Graves.

 

Using nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectroscopy, the

researchers obtained results which allowed them to describe the

chemical structure of a molecule with 'insulin-like' activity in

cinnamon. Graves and others reported earlier that this compound, a

proanthocyanidin, can affect insulin signalling in fat cells.

 

Richard Anderson of the US Department of Agriculture, the discoverer

of the insulin-like activity, recently completed a human study with

associates in Pakistan using cinnamon. Promising results were obtained

by 30 test subjects with type 2 diabetes after only 40 days of taking

cinnamon. They had a significant decrease in blood glucose,

triglycerides, LDL, and cholesterol.

 

The researchers hope that a human trial may begin in the US using

cinnamon and its water-soluble extract to treat type 2 diabetes.

 

In type 2 diabetes the body develops a resistance to insulin, thus

preventing the cells from receiving the glucose that they need to

function. The work at UCSB is focused on the way cinnamon operates at

cellular and molecular levels, looking at how it works with the cell's

insulin receptor and other proteins involved in reactions associated

with the action of insulin.

 

Graves said that other major diseases could also be helped by

cinnamon, including pancreatic cancer, a disease in which abnormal

amounts of insulin are produced by the pancreas in response to the

cancer tumour causing insulin resistance in the cells of the body. The

resistance prevents glucose availability to the cells. " It's

speculative but exciting, " Graves said of the theory.

 

Recent studies have shown that insulin resistance may also be involved

in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, he added. A study

testing the effects of the 'insulin-like' component of cinnamon on

protein reactions associated with Alzheimer's disease is planned at

UCSB's Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI).