Effects of Cinnamon on Risk Factors of Cardiovascular Diseases: A Review Paper

 Nowadays, herbal medicine is commonly used due to the side effects and high costs of chemical medicines. Cinnamon appears to be effective in the prevention and treatment of a variety of diseases, which is used in both food industry and traditional medicine. This study aims to review the effects of cinnamon on the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases and their related risk factors. 

In this review study, the search was conducted using the keywords in English including Cinnamon, Cinnamomum, Cinnamaldehyde and Heart, Cardiac, and Cardiomyopathy based on MeSH terms and the keywords in Persian for the related articles in Web of Sciences, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Scientific Information Database (SID) databases published until March 2021. Out of 205 studies, 51 experimental and clinical human and animal studies were reviewed.

 The results of studies reported the effects of cinnamon on the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension and oxidative stress.

 The majority of human and animal studies have shown that cinnamon prevent and treat cardiovascular diseases by lowering oxidative stress and improving blood pressure and blood lipid parameters.