The effects of cinnamon on risk factors of cardiovascular disease

Introduction: Herbal medicine is being considered today due to the side effects and high prices of chemical medicines. Cinnamon appears to be effective in the prevention and treatment of a variety of diseases, both as a food spice and in traditional medicine. We attempted to collect the effects of cinnamon on the occurrence of cardiovascular disorders and their related parameters in this review. Methods: In this review study, the English keywords; Cinnamon, Cinnamomum, Cinnamaldehyde, Cardiac, Cardiomyopathy, and Heart, as well as the Persian keywords Cinnamon and Cardiovascular in the title and abstract of the papers, were used to search papers for this analysis report. The Web of Sciences (ISI), PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Google Scholar, and SID databases were searched for papers, with no time limit until March 2021. A variety of experimental and clinical human and animal studies were enrolled to investigate the effect of cinnamon on various aspects of cardiovascular disease. Results: Out of a total of 205 articles found at the end of the search, 51 were thoroughly analyzed and their data was included in this review report.  In the final papers, the results related to the effects of cinnamon on the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases such as hyperlipidemia, hypertension and oxidative stress were investigated. Conclusion: The majority of human and animal studies showed that cinnamon may prevent and treat cardiovascular disease by lowering oxidative stress, as well as by improving blood pressure and blood lipid parameters.