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While I know the answer is no, I was baffled to see this posted on a friends Facebook page and figured this would be the best place to find the facts, that and I suck at research. I feel fallacies like this need to be fought with facts.

The claim is that drug companies don't want you to know that simply making a mixture of honey and cinnamon can cure virtually anything including cancer, heart disease and arthritis, please help me dispel this!

Quoting the terrible science:

Please allow me to preface this article with a bit of information unbeknown to the writer and virtually everyone else: cinnamon is 26 percent sulfur based and honey is 33 percent sulfur based, making their combination 59 percent sulfur based and the reason why their combination is so effective.

Oddthinking
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Nick S
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    Mixing something that is 26% with something that is 33% gives you a mixture that is anywhere between 26% and 33% (29.5% on average), not 59%. Another question is what do these percentages refer to? Because that's most definitely not the sulfur content in neither cinnamon nor honey. In fact they don't contain sulfur at all. – vartec Jun 26 '13 at 13:53
  • @vartec: There is a reason I wrote "Quoting the terrible science:" :) – shieldfoss Jun 26 '13 at 14:01
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    "Any disease" is rather broad and makes it very difficult to falsify. How about picking one of the claimed diseases from the list? – Oddthinking Jun 26 '13 at 17:27
  • This is a hoax started in a supermarket tabloid around 1995 and resurfaces periodically. See http://www.snopes.com/medical/homecure/honey.asp Knowing that the source produces works of fiction is not a slam dunk argument against the claims, but it seems so unlikely to be true based on these origins that I just don't care if scientists ever formally debunk it. – Matt Jun 26 '13 at 23:33
  • As @Oddthinking said above, this is clearly too broad and poorly defined to be answered definitely. – Sklivvz Jan 15 '14 at 09:54

1 Answers1

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There are several allegations and studies which suggest that cinnamon does or may help regulate insulin levels in diabetics.

However the American Diabetes Society disagrees, saying,

Cinnamon cannot replace medication, a healthy diet, and exercise for people with diabetes who are trying to prevent serious heart problems.

A balanced summary might be this one which says,

But look closer. The results may be statistically significant, but they’re not that impressive compared to medication. Cinnamon lowered A1C by 0.09%, versus the usual 1% with medication. Give [sic] A1c reflects overall glucose trends, cinnamon doesn’t look that impressive. Even at the extreme of the confidence interval, cinnamon has, at best, 10% of the efficacy of drug treatments. At worst, it’s completely ineffective.

ChrisW
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  • Note that those studies deal with [Cinnamomum verum](http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-2721692), not [Cinnamomum cassia](http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-2721201). In some locations, one is [more likely](http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5326e/x5326e07.htm) to find the latter type of cinnamon than the former type. –  Aug 28 '13 at 02:15
  • In any case, even if it were as effective as insulin it does not **cure** diabetes. – nico Aug 29 '13 at 06:49