Cinnamon and Honey Benefits: Blood Sugar, Colds & How to Mix

Honey is flower nectar that bees concentrate and enrich with their own enzymes,11 and cinnamon is the dried inner bark of trees of the genus Cinnamomum, sold as sticks or ground into the warm, sweet spice you know.12 Stir them into a cup of warm water, a bowl of oatmeal or a spoonful of goat milk yogurt and an everyday food starts to feel like a treat. Cinnamon brings its blood sugar research, and honey brings its soothing effect on a cough.

In The Biblio Diet, Jordan Rubin and I pair them again and again: in a quinoa breakfast bowl, in overnight oats topped with raw honey and pumpkin pie spice, in cinnamon pancakes sweetened with honey and on salmon seasoned with cinnamon under a raw-honey glaze.13 If you use cinnamon only in holiday recipes, you're missing out on one of the healthiest remedies on the planet.13

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Raw local honey and manuka honey are the two honeys I use on a regular basis, and manuka does double duty as an everyday sweetener and a natural antibacterial therapy.8 Honey is a far superior option to cane sugar, and as the Bible says, even honey should be used sparingly.

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What do honey and cinnamon do together?

The research on the pair comes from honey formulas with cinnamon in them. In a New Zealand trial, 12 adults with type 2 diabetes ate kanuka honey formulated with cinnamon, chromium and magnesium daily for 40 days, and plain kanuka honey for another 40; each person tried both, and people knew which treatment they got. On the formulated honey, their weight was 2.2 kilograms (about 5 pounds) lower than on plain honey, and their total and LDL cholesterol each ran 0.29 mmol/L (about 11 mg/dL) lower, while blood sugar measures didn't differ between the two.15 The second formula, a warm honey syrup from Persian traditional medicine, is in the coughs and breathing section below.5

No randomized trial has tested plain honey and cinnamon together, by themselves, in people, so most of this page follows what each food does on its own. In a lab test against two bacteria tied to acne, cinnamon bark extract and honey worked additively, their combined effect matching the sum of the two.16

A short history of honey and cinnamon

Scripture puts the two side by side. In the Song of Solomon, the bridegroom says, "Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue" (4:11), and three verses later he names "Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices" (4:14).17 Cinnamon appears four times in the King James Bible, the first time among the principal spices the Lord told Moses to take for the holy anointing oil: "of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels" (Exodus 30:23).17 For more of Scripture's healing foods, see the top 10 Bible foods that heal.

A compound honey syrup from Persian traditional medicine blends honey with ginger, Ceylon cinnamon, saffron, cardamom and galangal, and Iran's food and drug authority has licensed it.5 In traditional Chinese medicine, cinnamon is a warming spice, one of the herbs for a body that runs cold.18

What's in a spoonful of honey and cinnamon?

A teaspoon of honey (7 grams) with ½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon (1.3 grams) has about 24 calories and 5.8 grams of sugar, nearly all of it from the honey, plus 0.70 grams of fiber and 13.4 milligrams of calcium, mostly from the cinnamon.12

Calculated from USDA FoodData Central: Honey (FDC ID 169640) at a 7-gram teaspoon, one-third of the record's 21-gram tablespoon, and Spices, cinnamon, ground (FDC ID 171320) at half its 2.6-gram teaspoon.12

The honey supplies 21 of the spoonful's 24 calories, and cinnamon adds little to the label; its research centers on compounds in the bark, covered in the blood sugar section. USDA's ground cinnamon record lists its species as Cinnamomum aromaticum, a cassia.2

Honey and cinnamon benefits, ranked by evidence

The pair does the most for blood sugar, where cinnamon carries the research, and for coughs and sore throats, where honey does, with encouraging results for breathing, heart markers, fatty liver and memory.

Can honey and cinnamon lower blood sugar?

In the type 2 diabetes meta-analyses alone, that review put the fasting blood sugar drop at about 20 mg/dL.25 An older Cochrane review of 10 randomized trials, mostly of cassia and searched through early 2012, found the evidence inconclusive,26 and the analyses since have pooled more trials. A 2019 analysis of 16 randomized trials in type 2 diabetes and prediabetes found lower fasting blood sugar and less insulin resistance with cinnamon than with placebo,27 and a 2025 analysis of 28 randomized trials lasting 30 to 120 days in 3,054 adults with type 2 diabetes found lower fasting and after-meal blood sugar, HbA1c and insulin resistance, with HbA1c and BMI lower at 2 grams a day or less, about ¾ teaspoon.3

Cinnamon works in food amounts, and before diabetes sets in. In a UCLA trial, 18 adults with obesity and prediabetes took 4 grams of Indonesian cassia cinnamon a day (about 1½ teaspoons), in capsules split between breakfast and dinner, or a placebo for 4 weeks each, with a 2-week break between; each person tried both, and neither the people nor the researchers knew who got what. On continuous glucose monitors, blood sugar ran lower across the day with cinnamon, and the average rise at the blood sugar peak was 9.56 mg/dL, against 11.73 mg/dL on placebo.28 At an amount like that, choose Ceylon: the trial's cassia came to about 0.17 mg of coumarin per kilogram of body weight a day, above the European limit explained in the Ceylon section below.28 In a placebo-controlled trial of 54 adults with prediabetes, fasting blood sugar rose over 12 weeks on placebo and held steady on 500 mg of cinnamon three times a day, a 5 mg/dL difference.29

Honey averages a glycemic index of 61, a little below table sugar's 65.30 In a randomized trial in which 55 adults each ate honey, table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup for 2 weeks apiece, blood sugar and insulin responded the same way to all three.31 The kind of honey matters: in a University of Toronto analysis that mostly compared honey with people's usual diet, raw honey lowered fasting blood sugar by about 19 mg/dL (1.05 mmol/L) across 5 trials with 174 people, rated low certainty, while processed honey had no effect.14

In my view, type 2 diabetes can be reversed in many cases with diet, exercise and lifestyle, supported by natural remedies like berberine, chromium, cinnamon and magnesium.32 In a trial at 49 primary care practices, a structured diet and weight-loss program put 46% of 149 adults with type 2 diabetes into remission at 12 months, against 4% with usual care; people knew which program they were in.33

My Insulin Resistance & Prediabetes protocol cuts soda, juice, sweet coffee drinks, white bread and pastries for the first 30 days, counts Ceylon cinnamon, about a teaspoon a day, among its top 10 blood sugar foods and uses 1 gram a day as one of its top 8 supports.34 My Type 2 Diabetes Protocol calls for 1 to 2 grams of Ceylon with meals,32 and I like to add cinnamon to the diet as a powder rather than a supplement.35 With diabetes or prediabetes, keep honey to small amounts in place of other sweeteners; if you take insulin or other glucose-lowering medication, see the safety section.

Here's how cinnamon is thought to work on the sugar in a meal, step by step. The first step comes from lab tests; the rest come from people.

Can honey and cinnamon help coughs, colds and breathing?

Honey is the best-studied part of the pairing for a cough. In the Cochrane review, honey eased cough frequency by 1.62 points on a 7-point scale more than placebo (2 trials, 402 children) and by 1.05 points more than no treatment (2 trials, 154 children), both rated moderate certainty. It did somewhat better than the antihistamine diphenhydramine (0.57 points, 1 trial, 80 children) and about as well as the cough medicine dextromethorphan (0.07 points, 2 trials, 149 children), both rated low certainty, and most of the trials gave a single dose before bed.4 Across children and adults with colds and other upper respiratory infections, a review of 14 studies found honey eased overall symptoms, and how often and how hard people coughed, more than usual care.19

During a cold, I recommend herbal teas like ginger, ginseng or thyme with a little local honey or manuka honey stirred in once the tea is cool enough to sip, and for a sore throat, manuka is the honey to reach for.18 Cinnamon brings the warmth. When a cold or flu comes with chills and your body runs cold, Chinese medicine calls for warming herbs, and cinnamon is one of my super six for that pattern, along with ginger, garlic, cayenne, oregano and horseradish.18

The one randomized trial of a warm honey drink with Ceylon cinnamon in it comes from Iran. Researchers enrolled 82 adults with mild to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and analyzed 76, who took 10 mL of a compound honey syrup from Persian traditional medicine, or a look-alike syrup of water and sugar, in 100 mL (a little under half a cup) of warm water three times a day for 8 weeks, on top of their usual treatment; neither the people nor the researchers knew who got what. Each 100 mL of the syrup held 40 grams of honey and 7 grams of plant extracts: 2 grams each of Ceylon cinnamon bark and cardamom, and 1 gram each of ginger, saffron and galangal.5

On the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire, where a lower score means breathing problems weigh less on daily life, the honey syrup group went from 50.06 to 36.21 at week 4 and 33.14 at week 8, a drop of about 17 points, while the placebo group went from 58.88 to 49.54 and 47.08, a drop of about 12, and the groups differed at both checkpoints. No side effects of the syrup were reported. The result belongs to the five-spice formula as a whole.5

For a simple version at home, make a warm honey and cinnamon tea. It's for adults and children 1 and older.

For another simple warm drink, see ginger tea.

Can honey and cinnamon help your memory?

In Malaysia, 102 healthy postmenopausal women were randomly assigned to 20 grams of tualang honey a day (about a tablespoon), estrogen-progestin hormone therapy or no treatment for 16 weeks, with no placebo. Immediate memory and total learning improved with honey about as much as with hormone therapy, compared with the untreated women; memory after a distraction and delayed recall improved only with hormone therapy.23

In a 2025 randomized trial of 48 adults recovering from an ischemic stroke, 10 grams of honey from stingless bees twice a day for 12 weeks raised scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a standard test of memory and thinking, from 20.08 to 24.33, against 18.42 to 19.67 in the group that took no honey; that group got no placebo. The stroke survivors on honey also became more independent in daily life.24

For cinnamon, a 2024 review gathered 40 studies on memory and learning: 33 in animals, 5 in lab cell models and 2 in people. Cinnamon and its compounds, such as cinnamaldehyde and eugenol, improved memory and learning in most of them, and in cells they reduced amyloid-β and tau clumping; of the two human studies, one found better cognitive function and one found no change.12

For brain health, the simplest approach is the everyday amounts in the how-to section: a teaspoon of raw honey with ½ teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon in warm water, oatmeal or a smoothie, as part of a diet built around brain foods. For more steps that support memory, from sleep to exercise, see how to improve memory.

Where did the honey and cinnamon "cures" list come from?

A long list of honey and cinnamon "cures" has been passed around online for years. Snopes traced it to a January 17, 1995, item in the Weekly World News, and both foods do have antibacterial properties.39

The research since then gives you a better guide than the list: cinnamon for blood sugar, honey for coughs and sore throats, and honey dressings for burns, which healed partial-thickness burns 4.68 days faster than conventional dressings in a Cochrane review of 2 trials with 992 people.3440 Used every day, the two make healthy eating taste good while each brings the benefits its research supports.

Ceylon or cassia: which cinnamon should you use?

I sprinkle cinnamon into smoothies, coffee and oatmeal, and for everyday use I recommend organic Ceylon cinnamon powder.6 My protocols for insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and healthy weight all call for Ceylon, and the last two spell it out: Ceylon, not cassia.343243

Coumarin is why: the European Food Safety Authority confirmed a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 mg per kilogram of body weight, which works out to about 7 mg a day for a 154-pound (70-kilogram) adult and 2 mg for a 44-pound (20-kilogram) child.42 In a Czech study of 60 store-bought ground cinnamons from 12 brands, every sample carried coumarin at cassia levels, with brand averages from 2,650 to 7,017 mg per kilogram, while a Ceylon sample from a Sri Lankan plantation had none detectable.7 At USDA's 2.6 grams per teaspoon, that's about 6.9 to 18.2 mg of coumarin in one teaspoon of those cinnamons.2

In a U.S. study, authenticated Ceylon bark held only traces of coumarin, all three cassia species held substantial amounts, and coumarin turned up in every cinnamon, cinnamon-flavored food and cinnamon supplement the researchers bought locally, with a profile pointing to Indonesian cassia.41 Saigon cinnamon is one of those cassia species, and one of the higher-coumarin kinds.41

Coumarin in cinnamon foods is absorbed nearly as well as the pure compound: in 24 volunteers, coumarin from cassia in capsules, tea and rice pudding was absorbed at 54.7% to 66.1%, against 62.8%, and fastest from the tea.44 Levels vary widely, with German cassia sticks reaching about 10,000 mg per kilogram,45 and labels can miss: of 104 cinnamons bought in EU countries, 4 sold as Ceylon were wholly or partly cassia.46

For perspective, coumarin is a question of steady, high intake. In a review of the medical records of 129 Japanese outpatients taking traditional medicines made with cinnamon bark, 76% took in at least the daily limit, and liver-test changes were no more common in them (17.3%) than in those below it (19.4%).47 Cassia in occasional baking is fine. For the cinnamon you use every day, choose Ceylon.

• Look for the species. Cinnamomum verum (also called C. zeylanicum) is Ceylon; Saigon and Indonesian cinnamon are cassia species.41

• A named species beats a bare label. A jar that just says "cinnamon" is usually cassia, and even a Ceylon label can be wrong, so a seller who names the species and origin is your best bet.4146

For the spice in other forms, see cinnamon pills and the cinnamon oil guide, which covers how to use the oil safely.

How to mix honey and cinnamon

The pair has no set dose, so each food's everyday amount is the guide. My daily amount is 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of raw local honey, plus local bee pollen,8 and Scripture gives the same counsel: "Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it" (Proverbs 25:16).17 For cinnamon, about 1 gram a day, ¼ to ½ teaspoon, is ideal, and up to about a teaspoon a day is a tremendous addition to your diet; for daily use, make it Ceylon.910

I'd use honey to replace any sweetener you have, and in our house it's what we use to sweeten any dish or dessert.48 In recipes that don't need heat, use about 2 teaspoons of raw honey for each tablespoon of sugar.13

Heat matters for raw honey: in lab tests of raw rapeseed honey, warming it to 113 or 131 °F (45 or 55 °C) left its antibacterial activity intact, while microwaving wiped it out.49 Stir the cinnamon into hot water first, then add the honey once the cup is cool enough to sip, the same way you'd make honey water.

Who should be careful with honey and cinnamon?

For honey's full safety list, see our honey guide.

The bottom line

Honey and cinnamon: frequently asked questions

References

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2. US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central: Spices, cinnamon, ground. FDC ID 171320 (SR Legacy, NDB 2010; species listed as Cinnamomum aromaticum). Values read from the FDC portal data, October 12, 2026.
3. de Moura SL, Gomes BGR, Guilarducci MJ, Coelho OGL, Guimarães NS, Gomes JMG. Effects of cinnamon supplementation on metabolic biomarkers in individuals with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutr Rev. 2025;83(2):249-279. doi:10.1093/nutrit/nuae058. PMID:38917435
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32. Axe J. The Type 2 Diabetes Protocol. DrAxe.com protocol. 2026 (Recommended tier: Ceylon cinnamon 1-2 g with meals; "Use Ceylon (low-coumarin), not cassia").
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Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS

Doctor of Natural Medicine · Founder, DrAxe.com

Dr. Axe is a certified doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist, and multiple New York Times bestselling author. He has spent 20+ years in clinical practice helping people heal at the root cause and founded one of the most-visited natural-health platforms in the world.

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