Beneficial effects of cinnamon on the metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and pain, and mechanisms underlying these effects - a review.

Cinnamon is one of the most important herbal drugs and has been widely used in Asia for more than 4000 years. As a folk medicine, cinnamon has been traditionally applied to the treatment of inflammatory disorders and gastric diseases. After chemical profiling of cinnamon's components, their biological activities including antimicrobial, antiviral, antioxidant, antitumor, antihypertension, antilipemic, antidiabetes, gastroprotective and immunomodulatory were reported by many investigators. As a result, current studies have been performed mostly focusing on the bioactivity of cinnamon toward the recently generalized metabolic syndrome involving diabetes. In this review article, we provide an overview of the recent literature describing cinnamon's potential for preventing the metabolic syndrome.