Sweet Cinnamon vs Regular Cinnamon – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing sweet cinnamon to regular cinnamon, we picked the sweet.

Why?

In this case, it’s not close. One of them is health-giving and the other is poisonous (but still widely sold in supermarkets, especially in the US and Canada, because it is cheaper).

It’s worth noting that “regular cinnamon” is a bit of a misnomer, since sweet cinnamon is also called “true cinnamon”. The other cinnamon’s name is formally “cassia cinnamon”, but marketers don’t tend to call it that, preferring to calling it simply “cinnamon” and hope consumers won’t ask questions about what kind, because it’s cheaper.

Note: this too is especially true in the US and Canada, where for whatever reason sweet cinnamon seems to be more difficult to obtain than in the rest of the world.

In short, both cinnamons contain cinnamaldehyde and coumarin, but:

  • Sweet/True cinnamon contains only trace amounts of coumarin
  • Regular/Cassia cinnamon contains about 250x more coumarin

Coumarin is heptatotoxic, meaning it poisons the liver, and the recommended safe amount is 0.1mg/kg, so it’s easy to go over that with just a couple of teaspoons of cassia cinnamon.

You might be wondering: how can they get away with selling something that poisons the liver? In which case, see also: the alcohol aisle. Selling toxic things is very common; it just gets normalized a lot.

Cinnamaldehyde is responsible for cinnamon’s healthier properties, and is found in reasonable amounts in both cinnamons. There is about 50% more of it in the regular/cassia than in the sweet/true, but that doesn’t come close to offsetting the potential harm of its higher coumarin content.

Want to learn more?

You may like to read:

  • A Tale Of Two Cinnamons ← this one has more of the science of coumarin toxicity, as well as discussing (and evidencing) cinnamaldehyde’s many healthful properties against inflammation, cancer, heart disease, neurodegeneration, etc

Enjoy!

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  • Eyes for Alzheimer’s Diagnosis: New?

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    It’s Q&A Time!

    This is the bit whereby each week, we respond to subscriber questions/requests/etc

    Have something you’d like to ask us, or ask us to look into? Hit reply to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom, and a Real Human™ will be glad to read it!

    Q: As I am a retired nurse, I am always interested in new medical technology and new ways of diagnosing. I have recently heard of using the eyes to diagnose Alzheimer’s. When I did some research I didn’t find too much. I am thinking the information may be too new or I wasn’t on the right sites.

    (this is in response to last week’s piece on lutein, eyes, and brain health)

    We’d readily bet that the diagnostic criteria has to do with recording low levels of lutein in the eye (discernible by a visual examination of macular pigment optical density), and relying on the correlation between this and incidence of Alzheimer’s, but we’ve not seen it as a hard diagnostic tool as yet either—we’ll do some digging and let you know what we find! In the meantime, we note that the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (which may be of interest to you, if you’re not already subscribed) is onto this:

    Read: Cognitive Function and Its Relationship with Macular Pigment Optical Density and Serum Concentrations of its Constituent Carotenoids

    See also:

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  • Health Care AI, Intended To Save Money, Turns Out To Require a Lot of Expensive Humans

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    Preparing cancer patients for difficult decisions is an oncologist’s job. They don’t always remember to do it, however. At the University of Pennsylvania Health System, doctors are nudged to talk about a patient’s treatment and end-of-life preferences by an artificially intelligent algorithm that predicts the chances of death.

    But it’s far from being a set-it-and-forget-it tool. A routine tech checkup revealed the algorithm decayed during the covid-19 pandemic, getting 7 percentage points worse at predicting who would die, according to a 2022 study.

    There were likely real-life impacts. Ravi Parikh, an Emory University oncologist who was the study’s lead author, told KFF Health News the tool failed hundreds of times to prompt doctors to initiate that important discussion — possibly heading off unnecessary chemotherapy — with patients who needed it.

    He believes several algorithms designed to enhance medical care weakened during the pandemic, not just the one at Penn Medicine. “Many institutions are not routinely monitoring the performance” of their products, Parikh said.

    Algorithm glitches are one facet of a dilemma that computer scientists and doctors have long acknowledged but that is starting to puzzle hospital executives and researchers: Artificial intelligence systems require consistent monitoring and staffing to put in place and to keep them working well.

    In essence: You need people, and more machines, to make sure the new tools don’t mess up.

    “Everybody thinks that AI will help us with our access and capacity and improve care and so on,” said Nigam Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “All of that is nice and good, but if it increases the cost of care by 20%, is that viable?”

    Government officials worry hospitals lack the resources to put these technologies through their paces. “I have looked far and wide,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at a recent agency panel on AI. “I do not believe there’s a single health system, in the United States, that’s capable of validating an AI algorithm that’s put into place in a clinical care system.”

    AI is already widespread in health care. Algorithms are used to predict patients’ risk of death or deterioration, to suggest diagnoses or triage patients, to record and summarize visits to save doctors work, and to approve insurance claims.

    If tech evangelists are right, the technology will become ubiquitous — and profitable. The investment firm Bessemer Venture Partners has identified some 20 health-focused AI startups on track to make $10 million in revenue each in a year. The FDA has approved nearly a thousand artificially intelligent products.

    Evaluating whether these products work is challenging. Evaluating whether they continue to work — or have developed the software equivalent of a blown gasket or leaky engine — is even trickier.

    Take a recent study at Yale Medicine evaluating six “early warning systems,” which alert clinicians when patients are likely to deteriorate rapidly. A supercomputer ran the data for several days, said Dana Edelson, a doctor at the University of Chicago and co-founder of a company that provided one algorithm for the study. The process was fruitful, showing huge differences in performance among the six products.

    It’s not easy for hospitals and providers to select the best algorithms for their needs. The average doctor doesn’t have a supercomputer sitting around, and there is no Consumer Reports for AI.

    “We have no standards,” said Jesse Ehrenfeld, immediate past president of the American Medical Association. “There is nothing I can point you to today that is a standard around how you evaluate, monitor, look at the performance of a model of an algorithm, AI-enabled or not, when it’s deployed.”

    Perhaps the most common AI product in doctors’ offices is called ambient documentation, a tech-enabled assistant that listens to and summarizes patient visits. Last year, investors at Rock Health tracked $353 million flowing into these documentation companies. But, Ehrenfeld said, “There is no standard right now for comparing the output of these tools.”

    And that’s a problem, when even small errors can be devastating. A team at Stanford University tried using large language models — the technology underlying popular AI tools like ChatGPT — to summarize patients’ medical history. They compared the results with what a physician would write.

    “Even in the best case, the models had a 35% error rate,” said Stanford’s Shah. In medicine, “when you’re writing a summary and you forget one word, like ‘fever’ — I mean, that’s a problem, right?”

    Sometimes the reasons algorithms fail are fairly logical. For example, changes to underlying data can erode their effectiveness, like when hospitals switch lab providers.

    Sometimes, however, the pitfalls yawn open for no apparent reason.

    Sandy Aronson, a tech executive at Mass General Brigham’s personalized medicine program in Boston, said that when his team tested one application meant to help genetic counselors locate relevant literature about DNA variants, the product suffered “nondeterminism” — that is, when asked the same question multiple times in a short period, it gave different results.

    Aronson is excited about the potential for large language models to summarize knowledge for overburdened genetic counselors, but “the technology needs to improve.”

    If metrics and standards are sparse and errors can crop up for strange reasons, what are institutions to do? Invest lots of resources. At Stanford, Shah said, it took eight to 10 months and 115 man-hours just to audit two models for fairness and reliability.

    Experts interviewed by KFF Health News floated the idea of artificial intelligence monitoring artificial intelligence, with some (human) data whiz monitoring both. All acknowledged that would require organizations to spend even more money — a tough ask given the realities of hospital budgets and the limited supply of AI tech specialists.

    “It’s great to have a vision where we’re melting icebergs in order to have a model monitoring their model,” Shah said. “But is that really what I wanted? How many more people are we going to need?”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Undoing Creatine’s Puffiness Side Effect

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small 😎

    ❝Creatine is known to increase “puffiness”, especially in my face. Are there any supplements that do the opposite?!❞

    So first, let’s examine why this happens: creatine is most often taken to boost muscle size and performance. Your muscles are, of course, mostly water by mass, and so building your muscles requires extra water, which triggers systemic water retention.

    In other words: you take creatine, exercise, and as the muscles start growing, the body goes “oh heck, we are running out of water, better save as much as possible in order to keep hydrating the muscles without running out” and starts putting it anywhere it can that’s not your bladder, so this will largely be the soft tissues of your body.

    So, this results in classic water retentions symptoms including bloating and, yes, facial puffiness.

    How much this happens, and how long the effects last, depend on three main things:

    • What daily dose of creatine you are taking
    • What kind of exercise you are doing
    • What your hydration is like

    The dose is relevant as it’s most common to get this puffiness during the “loading” phase, i.e. if you’re taking an increased dose to start with.

    The exercise is relevant as it affects how much your body is actually using the water to build muscles.

    The hydration is relevant because the less water you are taking, the more the body will try to retain whatever you do have.

    This means, of course, that the supplement you are looking for to undo the facial puffiness is, in fact, water (even, nay, especially, if you feel bloated too):

    Water For Everything? Water’s Counterintuitive Properties

    Additionally, you could scale back the dose of creatine you’re taking, if you’re not currently doing heavy muscle-building exercise.

    That said, the recommended dose for cognitive benefits is 5g/day, which is a very standard main-phase (i.e., post-loading) bodybuilding dose, so do with that information what you will.

    See also: Creatine’s Brain Benefits Increase With Age

    On which note: whether or not you want to take creatine for brain benefits, however, may depend on your age:

    Creatine: Very Different For Young & Old People

    Most research on creatine’s effects on humans has usually been either collegiate athletes or seniors, which leaves quite a research gap in the middle—so it’s unclear at what age the muscle-building effects begin to taper off, and at what age the cognitive benefits begin to take off.

    Want a quicker fix?

    If you want to reduce your facial puffiness acutely (e.g., you have a date in an hour and would like to not have a puffy face), then there are two things you can do that will help immediately, and/but only have short-term effects, meaning you’d have to do them daily to enjoy the results every day:

    The first is an ice bath; simply fill a large bowl with water and ice cubes, give it a couple of minutes to get down to temperature, hold your breath and plunge your face in for as long as you can comfortably hold your breath. Repeat a few times, and towel off.

    This helps by waking up the vasculature in your face, helping it to reduce puffiness naturally.

    The second is facial yoga or guā shā, which is the practice of physically manipulating the soft tissues of your face to put them where you want them, rather than where you don’t want them. This will work against water retention puffiness, as well as cortisol puffiness, lymphatic puffiness, and more:

    7-Minute Face Fitness For Lymphatic Drainage & Youthful Jawline

    Enjoy!

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Related Posts

  • Buckwheat vs Oats – Which is Healthier?
  • White Potato vs Sweet Potato – Which is Healthier?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing white potatoes to sweet potatoes, we picked the sweet potatoes.

    Why?

    In terms of macros, sweet potatoes are a little lighter on carbs and calories, though in the case of sugar and fiber, sweet potato has a few grams more of each, per potato. However, when an average sweet potato’s 7g of sugar are held against its 4g of fiber, this (much like with fruit!) not a sugar you need to avoid.

    See also: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    The glycemic index of a sweet potato is also lower than that of a white potato, so the sugars it does have are slower-release.

    Sweet potatoes famously are good sources of vitamin A and beta-carotene, which important nutrients white potatoes cannot boast.

    Both plants are equally good sources of potassium and vitamin C.

    Summary

    Both are good sources of many nutrients, and any nutritional health-hazards associated with them come with the preparation (for example, frying introduces unhealthy fats, and mashing makes the glycemic index skyrocket, and cooking with salt increases the salt content).

    Baking either is great (consider stuffing them with delicious well-seasoned beans and/or tomatoes; if you make it yourself, pesto can be a great option too, as can cheese if you’re so-inclined and judicious with choice and quantity) and preserves almost all of their nutrients. Remember that nearly 100% of the fiber is in the skin, so you do want to eat that.

    The deciding factor is: sweet potatoes are good sources of a couple more valuable nutrients that white potatoes aren’t, and come out as the overall healthiest for that reason.

    Enjoy!

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  • What Happens To Your Body When You Do Squats Every Day-Not Just For Legs!

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    Squat Every Day? Yes, Please!

    It’s back to basics with this video (below). Passion for Health’s video, “What Happens To Your Body When You Do Squats Every Day-Not Just For Legs!” really brings home how squats aren’t just a one-trick pony for your legs.

    The humble bodyweight squat is shown to contribute to everything from bolstering all-around lower body strength to bettering bone density and increasing metabolism.

    Indeed, squats are so powerful that we reviewed a whole book that focuses just on the topic of squatting. Other, broader books on exercise also focus on the positive impacts that squatting can make.

    A proper squat goes beyond your legs, engaging your core, enhancing joint health, and, some argue, can lead to improved balance and circulation.

    (Plus, they’re easy to execute, given they can be done anywhere, without any equipment).

    This is probably why Luigi Fontana and Dr Rangan Chatterjee have spoken about the benefits of squatting.

    How Should We Start?

    The video goes beyond the ‘why’ and delves into the ‘how’, offering step-by-step squatting techniques.

    It answers the burning question: should you really be doing squats every day? 

    (Hint: the answer is most likely “yes”).

    Of course, some of us may not be able to squat, and for those, we’ll feature alternatives in a future article.

    For beginners, the advice is to start slow, aiming for 10 repetitions. You can gradually increase that count as you feel your muscles strengthen. Experienced gym-goers might push for 20 or more reps, adding variations like jump squats for an extra challenge.

    The key takeaway is to listen to your body and ensure rest days for muscle recovery.

    At the end of the day, Passion for Health’s video is a treasure trove for squat lovers, from novices to the seasoned, and insists on the importance of form, frequency, and listening to one’s body.

    How did you find that video? If you’ve discovered any great videos yourself that you’d like to share with fellow 10almonds readers, then please do email them to us!

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  • Why the WHO has recommended switching to a healthier salt alternative

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    This week the World Health Organization (WHO) released new guidelines recommending people switch the regular salt they use at home for substitutes containing less sodium.

    But what exactly are these salt alternatives? And why is the WHO recommending this? Let’s take a look.

    goodbishop/Shutterstock

    A new solution to an old problem

    Advice to eat less salt (sodium chloride) is not new. It has been part of international and Australian guidelines for decades. This is because evidence clearly shows the sodium in salt can harm our health when we eat too much of it.

    Excess sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, which affects millions of Australians (around one in three adults). High blood pressure (hypertension) in turn increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and kidney disease, among other conditions.

    The WHO estimates 1.9 million deaths globally each year can be attributed to eating too much salt.

    The WHO recommends consuming no more than 2g of sodium daily. However people eat on average more than double this, around 4.3g a day.

    In 2013, WHO member states committed to reducing population sodium intake by 30% by 2025. But cutting salt intake has proved very hard. Most countries, including Australia, will not meet the WHO’s goal for reducing sodium intake by 2025. The WHO has since set the same target for 2030.

    The difficulty is that eating less salt means accepting a less salty taste. It also requires changes to established ways of preparing food. This has proved too much to ask of people making food at home, and too much for the food industry.

    A salt shaker spilling onto a table.
    There’s been little progress on efforts to cut sodium intake. snezhana k/Shutterstock

    Enter potassium-enriched salt

    The main lower-sodium salt substitute is called potassium-enriched salt. This is salt where some of the sodium chloride has been replaced with potassium chloride.

    Potassium is an essential mineral, playing a key role in all the body’s functions. The high potassium content of fresh fruit and vegetables is one of the main reasons they’re so good for you. While people are eating more sodium than they should, many don’t get enough potassium.

    The WHO recommends a daily potassium intake of 3.5g, but on the whole, people in most countries consume significantly less than this.

    Potassium-enriched salt benefits our health by cutting the amount of sodium we consume, and increasing the amount of potassium in our diets. Both help to lower blood pressure.

    Switching regular salt for potassium-enriched salt has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and premature death in large trials around the world.

    Modelling studies have projected that population-wide switches to potassium-enriched salt use would prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from cardiovascular disease (such as heart attack and stroke) each year in China and India alone.

    The key advantage of switching rather than cutting salt intake is that potassium-enriched salt can be used as a direct one-for-one swap for regular salt. It looks the same, works for seasoning and in recipes, and most people don’t notice any important difference in taste.

    In the largest trial of potassium-enriched salt to date, more than 90% of people were still using the product after five years.

    A female nurse taking a senior man's blood pressure.
    Excess sodium intake increases the risk of high blood pressure, which can cause a range of health problems. PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

    Making the switch: some challenges

    If fully implemented, this could be one of the most consequential pieces of advice the WHO has ever provided.

    Millions of strokes and heart attacks could be prevented worldwide each year with a simple switch to the way we prepare foods. But there are some obstacles to overcome before we get to this point.

    First, it will be important to balance the benefits and the risks. For example, people with advanced kidney disease don’t handle potassium well and so these products are not suitable for them. This is only a small proportion of the population, but we need to ensure potassium-enriched salt products are labelled with appropriate warnings.

    A key challenge will be making potassium-enriched salt more affordable and accessible. Potassium chloride is more expensive to produce than sodium chloride, and at present, potassium-enriched salt is mostly sold as a niche health product at a premium price.

    If you’re looking for it, salt substitutes may also be called low-sodium salt, potassium salt, heart salt, mineral salt, or sodium-reduced salt.

    A review published in 2021 found low sodium salts were marketed in only 47 countries, mostly high-income ones. Prices ranged from the same as regular salt to almost 15 times higher.

    An expanded supply chain that produces much more food-grade potassium chloride will be needed to enable wider availability of the product. And we’ll need to see potassium-enriched salt on the shelves next to regular salt so it’s easy for people to find.

    In countries like Australia, about 80% of the salt we eat comes from processed foods. The WHO guideline falls short by not explicitly prioritising a switch for the salt used in food manufacturing.

    Stakeholders working with government to encourage food industry uptake will be essential for maximising the health benefits.

    Xiaoyue (Luna) Xu, Scientia Lecturer, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney and Bruce Neal, Executive Director, George Institute Australia, George Institute for Global Health

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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