A few years ago, I was taking care of a woman who developed diabetes during her pregnancy. Changes in her diet were not working, and I was getting ready to have the dreaded "you might need insulin" talk.
Instead, she asked me if she could try taking cinnamon. She had read that cinnamon was an effective treatment for type 2 diabetes and thought it might be good for her, too. She was right. A 2003 study on Pakistani patients with poorly controlled diabetes showed that cinnamon reduced glucose and cholesterol levels. She gave it a try, and it seemed to work—she was able to avoid insulin during her pregnancy.
Dietary supplements for diabetes have been around for a long time. Many are peddled by con men preying on vulnerable patients. Others, like cinnamon, have some real data backing them up. Two new studies, looking at cinnamon and fish oil, point ...
