Cinnamon’s Positive Effects in Type II Diabetes
Cinnamon has multiple positive effects that were affirmed in a meta-analysis by Robert W. Allen et al. in Annals of Family Medicine in 2013. Cinnamon lowered blood sugar, insulin levels, triglycerides, and low-density lipoproteins (“bad” cholesterol) while increasing high-density lipoproteins (“good” cholesterol). Cinnamon did not lower hemoglobin A1C, a global measure of glucose dysregulation, but that result could be explained by the short durations of some of the studies included in the meta-analysis.
Editor’s Note: Cinnamon’s role in the fight against type II diabetes remains to be determined, but a little bit may help those with diabetes or at risk for it. The researchers who produced the meta-analysis could not make a recommendation about how much cinnamon to add to one’s diet because the studies included in the meta-analysis had explored a wide range of doses.
Statin Benefits for Mood, Brain, and Heart Seem to Outweigh Diabetes Risk
Statins are a class of drugs that are the most commonly prescribed treatment for high cholesterol. They can reduce risk of heart attack and stroke in people with a history of cardiovascular disease. New research is beginning to clarify statins’ other effects, which on the negative side can include increased risk of diabetes and liver and muscle inflammation, and on the positive side can include reduced risk of cataracts and prevention of depression and dementia.
In late 2012, the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions included a discussion of five new studies suggesting that the cardiovascular benefit of taking statins is worth the slightly increased risk of diabetes. Researchers at the conference explained that cardiovascular events are much more serious than the small increase in risk of diabetes. While all five studies showed an increase in diabetes risk, the absolute increase was low and depended on the patients’ level of risk prior to treatment and how high their doses of statins were. There are strategies that can reduce diabetes risk in statins users, including using bile-acid sequestrants, reducing niacin, and monitoring glucose. Consensus at the conference was that statins’ cardiovascular benefits are so important that the drugs shouldn’t be avoided because of concerns about diabetes.
In addition, statins’ beneficial effects on mood have been reported for several years. In 2010, an epidemiological study by Pasco et al. in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics showed that subjects without depression were less likely to develop a new onset of depression if they were treated with statins compared to those who were not. Stafford et al. reported in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 2010 that patients taking statins had a 79% decreased likelihood of depression at 9 months of follow-up. Moreover, a 2012 meta-analysis by O’Neil et al. in BMC Medicine reported that overall, statins had positive effects on mood.
A recent huge Taiwanese study of statins suggests that the drugs can also prevent dementia. At the European Society of Cardiology congress in 2013, Tin-Tse Lin reported that among 58,000 people studied, those taking the highest dosage of statins had a threefold decrease in risk of developing pre-senile and senile dementia. He explained that it was the potency of statins such as atorvastatin and rosuvastatin that provided the cognitive benefit. However it is high doses that lead to less benign side effects such as liver and muscle inflammation.
A separate US study presented at the congress showed that statin use also lowered risk of developing cataracts by 19%.
Keep Your Heart and Cardiovascular System Healthy
Middle aged folks, watch your risk factors for cardiovascular disease. These include: high blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, and blood sugar (diabetes).
According to Heartwire, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that having any of these risk factors increases the likelihood of cardiovascular disease later in life. The more risk factors one has, the greater the increase in risk.
Across the whole meta-analysis, participants with no risk factors at age 55 (total cholesterol level: <180 mg/dL;
blood pressure: <120 mm Hg systolic and 80 mm Hg diastolic; nonsmoking; nondiabetic) had drastically better odds
of avoiding death from cardiovascular disease through the age of 80 than participants with two or more major risk
factors (4.7% vs 29.6% among men and 6.4% vs 20.5% among women).People with an optimal risk-factor profile also had lower lifetime risks of fatal coronary heart disease or nonfatal MI (Editor’s Note: myocardial infarction, or heart attack) (3.6% vs 37.5% among men, <1% vs 18.3% among women) and fatal or nonfatal stroke (2.3% vs 8.3% among men,
5.3% vs 10.7% among women), compared with those with two or more risk factors.
What this article does not mention is that depression is a risk factor for coronary artery disease, and should be treated just as aggressively and persistently as the other cardiovascular risk factors.
Also as we’ve written before in the BNN, exercise is one element of a healthy life style that can positively affect all of these risk factors. Starting a healthy diet and exercise regimen in middle age will have long-term positive effects and reduce risks later in life.
