Thursday, September 10, 2009

Healthy Living Tip - #3 Add Cinnamon to Your Daily Diet

Today's healthy living tip is to spice up your life with a little cinnamon. A multitude of health benefits can be obtained by adding the humble spice, Cinnamon, to your daily diet. Cinnamon helps balance the blood sugar, lower cholesterol, speed up metabolism, protect your body from inflammation which causes arthritis, allergies and many other health problems and increase your immunity to colds, flu and other illnesses.

This is also one of the simplest of tips for healthy living. Cinnamon costs mere pennies to use and it's easy to sprinkle a little healthy spiciness on cereal, yogurt, in your daily smoothie, or even on veggies. If you can't remember to use cinnamon powder in your daily health program, you can purchase cinnamon supplements for just a few dollars to add to your vitamin regimen.

Recent studies offer evidence that adding just 1/4 tsp of cinnamon to your daily diet can lower LDL or "bad" cholesterol by seven to 27%. People in the cinnamon study who took up to 1 3/4tsp of cinnamon for 40 days also found a 23 to 30% lowering of their triglyceride levels, which are fats in the blood.

Cinnamon was also found to enhance the effectiveness of insulin in people with Type II diabetes, helping them to lower blood sugar levels.

I have seen cinnamon work to lower cholesterol in people I know personally. Three members of my immediate family tried adding 1/4 tsp of cinnamon to their daily diet and lowered cholesterol from over 250 down to normal ranges below 200. All from sprinkling a little cinnamon on their morning cereal, or in the case of my husband, adding it to his morning smoothie.

Other reasons why Cinnamon is a great healthy living tip:

In Chinese Medicine, Cinnamon is known as a warming herb and just the aroma is believed to enhance cognitive thinking and increase metabolism.

Cinnamon is full of healthy antioxidants to increase the efficiency of the immune system.
Cinnamon also contains manganese and Calcium.

Cinnamon helps prevent blood clotting and anti-inflammatory in the body. Inflammation is thought to be the underlying cause of many health problems, from arthritis to allergies to heart disease.

Cinnamon could be beneficial in fighting candida yeast because it is an anti-microbial and has been studied for its ability to stop the growth of bacteria and fungi.

The only downside of eating cinnamon is that, for some, it can cause heartburn. If this is the case for you, simply purchase cinnamon supplements in any drug store or vitamin store and take as directed.

This daily health tip is simple to implement and costs just a few pennies a day. There are no known adverse effects to enjoying the health benefits of cinnamon. Besides, cinnamon tastes delicious! Try adding cinnamon to mixed fruit, yogurt or cereal or try this delicious smoothie recipe.

For other great tips for healthy living, visit www.Path2HealthyLiving.com or 100 Healthy Living Tips.

New health and fitness tips added daily!

1 comment:

healthyliving said...

Healtier Living

Cinamon was a very healthy food too but good for the health.