Anyone having LOW Blood Sugar reactions to Cinnamon?

KnitOrMiss

So, there's been a whole lot going on with me today... Not so brief summary here, if anyone cares:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/KnitOrMiss/view/painful-lesson-learned-767846

But, it has occurred to me. A while back, I attempted to rein in my insulin resistance with a blood sugar balancing supplement. It ended up in triggering my IR at every meal. Deduction led to the conclusion that it might have actually been dropping my blood sugar too much, since it was already reasonable sugars too much. So I stopped it, and reactions stopped immediately.

Fast forward to today. Too many factors to know for sure, but I had my breakfast with cinnamon in it (I LOVE cinnamon, like more than chocolate love it), and I had a part of my lunch with it. I then had an episode of postprandial somnolence. I am now, in retrospect, wondering if this might have been an episode of possible low blood sugar or something.

Once the fats from my lunch processed thought, the mental dips are totally gone and fully keto clarity, focus, and energy have returned.

Without having my meter that I haven't had to use in AGES (was originally a fact finding mission PRIOR to discovering the IR) to confirm the BG level hypothesis, what do y'all think?

Thanks in advance. I know not as many of us are insulin resistant, and definitely no one I've run across has my random plethora of weird complications, I do appreciate the dialog, as it always gives me plenty of food for thought.

I'm not saying it was only the cinnamon, as there were many other outlying factors, but I'm wondering if it was a compounding factor...

Has anyone else had this reaction?

Oh, and it is Chinese cinnamon, but it doesn't specify Ceylon or Cassia, but the last time I had Cassia in a supplement, I broke out in a rash on my arms, and I've had no reactions to this cinnamon...

sweetteadrinker2

I have a hunch that this happens to me too. I love cinnamon, but had to remove it from my BPC because including it made me shaky, crash, etc. Eating it with protein(cinnamon chicken breasts) seems ok, but having it with fats or in plain coffee seems to be a no go. Strangely enough I don't get any reactions from cinnamon sticks boiled in water and using that water as a syrup/flavoring.

It also causes some IR horses to completely crash! Obviously you're not a horse, but theyre another monogastric animal. We have one mare that can reliably be made to nap when given a tbsp of cinnamon about 20 minutes pre-nap time. It beats giving her injectable sedatives for vet work!

ladipoet

How interesting - on both counts!

Foamroller

Cinnamon does lower bg. This whole year, I have chai with extra spices: cinnamon, cardamum, ginger and cloves after meals to help body deal with the spiking. Lately, I haven't felt so much urge to have the chai, possibly cause the sensitivity is increased. I still put cinnamon into morning coffe with almond milk, since Bg usually is naturally higher in morning. I use ceylon cinnamon, idk if that's any difference though.

KnitOrMiss

Thanks for the responses. Sometimes I feel like my questions here are so convoluted, and everyone just looks at me like an alien landed on my head.

It's nice to know occasionally that I'm not just only out in la-la land...or at least not alone.

Thanks!

Dragonwolf

I think it's definitely worth looking into the mechanisms by which the "blood sugar lowering" items do it. Some do it by increasing insulin sensitivity, while some may be basically blindly binding to glucose or some other mechanism. (These differences in mechanisms are why Inositol won't produce lows, but Metformin, Byetta, or cinnamon might.)

Either way, for most people, while lower blood sugar isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's not usually the only thing, especially if they're dealing with insulin resistance. Insulin resistance usually means there's too much insulin in the bloodstream. If you suddenly become more sensitive, then all of a sudden, all the insulin is useful and shoving the sugar into cells and out of the bloodstream. Additionally, if your body is used to a certain amount of sugar in your blood stream (even if it's a damaging amount), then suddenly removing a chunk of that by whatever mechanism is going to produce low blood sugar symptoms.

wabmester

Mechanisms? I had to do a quick search of pubmed when you said that.

Cinnamon appears to be metabolized in the liver to Sodium Benzoate.



Lots of studies on the effects, including potential liver toxicity when combined with statins:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25923145

A combination of cinnamon supplement and statin can cause hepatitis, and it should be discouraged.

KnitOrMiss

Dragonwolf wrote: »

I think it's definitely worth looking into the mechanisms by which the "blood sugar lowering" items do it. Some do it by increasing insulin sensitivity, while some may be basically blindly binding to glucose or some other mechanism. (These differences in mechanisms are why Inositol won't produce lows, but Metformin, Byetta, or cinnamon might.)

Either way, for most people, while lower blood sugar isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's not usually the only thing, especially if they're dealing with insulin resistance. Insulin resistance usually means there's too much insulin in the bloodstream. If you suddenly become more sensitive, then all of a sudden, all the insulin is useful and shoving the sugar into cells and out of the bloodstream. Additionally, if your body is used to a certain amount of sugar in your blood stream (even if it's a damaging amount), then suddenly removing a chunk of that by whatever mechanism is going to produce low blood sugar symptoms.

I'll mention it to my endo, but I'm not on any meds for this. But, I'd been fasting middays for about 9 days or so, keeping on track with carbs, so I imagine my blood glucose was pretty steady. Adding in the cinnamon could have dropped it just enough to get wacky. I've always loved cinnamon, but it's starting to seem evil!