Nurses Corner

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Spice Up Your Life

One of the federal websites today published two stories about spices that when consumed 1) lower cholesterol 2) improve insulin function and 3) kill ovarian cancer cells.


A few years ago, one of the nurses I worked with found a small study that reported use of cinnamon to improve uptake of insulin in the body. We started encouraging diabetic patients to take a gram or two of cinnamon a day. To my knowledge, none did. But we tried, even suggesting taking cinnamon via capsule if the patient didn't like the taste of cinnamon.

So today comes the news that cinnamon actually does indeed improve insulin uptake, and lower triglycerides, and glucose by up to 10 to 30 percent. That's HUGE news. See http://healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=531953 for the entire article.


The fed study states that a few grams of cloves per day has the same theraputic effect.


It might be that cloves particularly might cause some digestive upset, if so, peppermint or ginger tea help a great deal.

In the second fed article, studies on ovarian cancer cells either "commit suicide" or digest themselves when bathed in ginger. Further study will be done on some rather unfortunate lab animals.

The full article can be found here: http://healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=531950

For one, I'm very pleased that natural cures are now more vigorously studied. While our formulary of medications for various diseases is impressive, most are but side-effect producing band-aids. Yes, some cure diseases and illnesses, but some that are commonly given out are downright dangerous. The less medication a person can get away with, the healthier they will be.




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