- Does cinnamon help control blood sugar or blood pressure? Cinnamon may modestly help control blood sugar levels. The evidence is less clear regarding blood pressure (See What It Does).
- What is the correct dose of cinnamon? A dose of 1 gram (1,000 mg or about 1/2 teaspoon) of cinnamon bark powder per day may be sufficient to lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. With some extracts, smaller doses (as little as 120 mg) may be sufficient (See ConsumerTips™).
- Which cinnamon supplement provided the most PACs? In the supplements tested, PACs ranged from less than 5 mg to over 40 mg per daily serving. Interestingly, the most expensive products provided the least PACs, and there was a 15-fold difference in the cost to obtain PACs across the products (for amounts of PACs, see the Supplements Results Table).
- Is cinnamon safe? What did ConsumerLab find? A concern with cinnamon is that it may contain significant amounts of coumarin — a naturally occurring compound that may cause liver toxicity and is a potential carcinogen. Coumarin can be high in cassia cinnamon (the most common type of cinnamon), but should be low in Ceylon cinnamon — also called "true" cinnamon or Cinnamonum verum — which is, typically, more expensive. However, ConsumerLab found that a "Ceylon" cinnamon product contained 4 mg of coumarin per serving — more than any other cinnamon supplement, suggesting that it is mislabeled. None of the products, however, exceeded the tolerable daily intake limit of 7 mg for an average-sized adult, but two exceeded the limit for children (see coumarin amounts in the Results Tables for Supplements and for Spices.
- One of the cinnamon spices had a particularly high concentration of lead — right at ConsumerLab's limit. Another cinnamon spice had higher concentration of coumarin. We would not recommend either for frequent use. No spice exceeded limits for filth and none (including bark powder supplements) was contaminated with Salmonella.
- Which cinnamon supplement is best? One supplement stood out among the others for providing a high amount of PACs, a safe amount of coumarin, passing all contamination testing, and being relatively inexpensive. It was chosen as our Top Pick among cinnamon supplements.
- Which cinnamon spice is best? We chose three products as our Top Picks for spices. Two were chosen because they had no detectable lead and relatively low amounts of coumarin. The third was chosen because it had no detectable coumarin.
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Cinnamon Supplements and Spices Review
CAUTION: Some Cinnamon Products High in Toxin. See Which Passed or Failed and our Top Picks!
Reviewed and edited by Tod Cooperman, M.D.
Alphabetical list of cinnamon supplements and spices compared in this review
365 Cinnamon Ground
Badia Cinnamon Powder
FGO Organic Ceylon Cinnamon Powder
Finest Nutrition Cinnamon
Mason Natural Whole Herb Cinnamon Alpha Lipoic Acid
McCormick Ground Cinnamon
Natural Factors WellBetX CinnamonRich
Nature's Answer Fluid Extract Cinnamon Bark
Nature's Bounty Cinnamon 2,000 mg
Nutriflair Ceylon Cinnamon
Oregon's Wild Harvest "True" Cinnamon (Ceylon)
PipingRock.com Ceylon Cinnamon 2,000 mg
ProCaps Laboratories Cinnamon 350
Puritan's Pride Cinnamon with High-Potency Chromium
Simply Organic Vietnamese Cinnamon
Swanson Cinnulin PF Cinnamon Extract
Trunature Advanced Strength CinSulin
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Summary
You must be a member to get the full test results along with ConsumerLab.com's recommendations and quality ratings for cinnamon supplements and spices. You will get results for 12 cinnamon supplements selected for testing by ConsumerLab.com as well as for two others that passed the same testing in CL's voluntary Quality Certification Program. You will also get results for five popular five spices used for cooking and baking.
In this comprehensive review, you'll discover:
In this comprehensive review, you'll discover:
- Which cinnamon supplements failed testing and which passed
- Direct comparisons and quality ratings of cinnamon supplements, as well as ground cinnamon spices
- Amounts of potentially beneficial PACs found in cinnamon supplements — information you won't find on most labels!
- Amounts of the potentially toxic compounds coumarin and lead found
- Evidence and dosage for specific uses of cinnamon, including lowering blood sugar, cholesterol, blood pressure
- Side effects of cinnamon supplements
- Cautions and potential drug interactions for cinnamon
- How safe are cinnamon sticks?
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Related CL Answers (4)
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