What is Doctor’s Best Cinnamon? Doctor’s Best Cinnamon can help maintain a healthy blood sugar level. Cinnamon, one of the world’s favorite spices, is a medicinal herb with more than 4,000 years of traditional use. Recent research has revealed that constituents in cinnamon bark called procyanidin Type-A polymers help maintain the body’s ability to metabolize glucose in a healthy way. Doctor’s Best uses cinnamon extract from Cinnulin, a patented, water extract of cinnamon that contains Type-A polymers. How does it work? Research has revealed that a number of herbs and spices have blood sugar metabolizing activity. Researchers at the USDA’s Human Nutrition Research Center showed that bioactive compounds in cinnamon facilitate glucose metabolism and storage in fat cells. These compounds stimulate glucose uptake into cells and increase glycogen (stored glucose) production via activation of the enzyme, glycogen synthase. The bioactive compounds in cinnamon appear to have their impact at a cellular receptor level. Blood sugar control and storage involves phosphorylation-dephosphorylation reactions. Enzymes known as “protein tyrosine phosphatases” (PTPases) perform dephosphorylation by removal of phosphate groups from residues on proteins. Cinnamon compounds have demonstrated the in vitro ability to inhibit PTP-1, a PTPase that inactivates insulin receptors, and stimulates auto phosphorylation of these same receptors, thereby supporting healthy blood sugar metabolism.
