Canela
Quick Facts
- What it is: Canela is cinnamon bark, a kitchen spice and household remedy across Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa, used for stomach upset, cramps, chills and more recently blood sugar.
- Main uses: Blood sugar support (unproven), Upset stomach and gas, Period cramps, Colds and chills, Flavouring food
- Best for: Everyday cooking, A comforting after-meal tea
- Active ingredients: Cinnamaldehyde, Cinnamic acid, Eugenol, Type-A proanthocyanidins, Coumarin (high in cassia)
- Forms: Ground spice, Whole sticks, Tea, Capsules, Water-based extract, Essential oil (external only)
- Time to effect: Stomach comfort right away; any blood sugar change takes 6 to 12 weeks and may not happen at all.
- Side effects: Mild at food amounts; high daily cassia doses over months have been linked to liver injury.
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What is Canela?
Canela is cinnamon: the dried inner bark of trees in the Cinnamomum family. In Latin American, Caribbean and West African kitchens and home remedies it is brewed as a tea, simmered into drinks, and used for period cramps, colds, upset stomach and, more recently, blood sugar.
Two different barks are sold under the same name. Canela de Ceilán (Cinnamomum verum, "true" or Ceylon cinnamon) is pale, soft and flaky. Cassia cinnamon (Cinnamomum cassia and relatives) is darker, harder and far more common in supermarkets — and it carries much more coumarin, a natural compound that can harm the liver in large daily doses.
Evidence verdict: canela has deep, wide traditional standing, and human trials for blood sugar and cholesterol exist but disagree with each other, so the effect is at best small and unproven. Traditional use tells you a plant has been valued for a long time; it is not proof that it works.
As a spice in food, canela is one of the safest things in your kitchen. The cautions on this page are about concentrated daily supplement doses, cassia bark in particular, and cinnamon essential oil, which is a different and much stronger product.
How does Canela work?
The honest answer is that nobody has pinned this down in people.
In laboratory and animal work, compounds from cinnamon bark appear to make cells respond a little better to insulin (the hormone that moves sugar out of the blood) and may slow how fast starch is broken down in the gut. Whether this happens strongly enough in a human body to matter is still unsettled.
Cinnamaldehyde, the compound that gives canela its smell, also kills bacteria and fungi in a dish. That does not mean drinking cinnamon tea treats an infection inside you.
What forms does Canela come in?
Ground spice for cooking and baking, the everyday form and the safest one.
Whole quills (rolled bark sticks) for simmering in teas, café de olla, atole, sorrel drinks and stews.
Tea or infusion, usually one stick or half a teaspoon of bark in a cup of hot water.
Capsules and tablets of powdered bark, typically 500 mg to 1,000 mg each.
Water-based extracts, which leave most coumarin behind and are the form used in several trials.
Cinnamon essential oil, which is for scent and diluted skin use only. It is not a tea and must never be swallowed.
Where it comes from:
Cinnamon bark is one of the oldest traded spices on earth, moving from Sri Lanka and southern India into Egypt, Arabia and the Mediterranean thousands of years ago.
Spanish and Portuguese trade carried it into the Caribbean and the Americas, where it settled into daily life: canela sticks in coffee, in hot chocolate, in agua de canela for cramps and chills, and in sorrel and ginger drinks across the Caribbean and West Africa.
It also holds a long-standing place in Ayurvedic and Chinese herbal practice, which is why its traditional standing is rated across multiple traditions rather than one.
Who should avoid Canela?
- Do not use if you have liver disease, hepatitis or a fatty liver, unless your doctor says otherwise — coumarin in cassia cinnamon can worsen liver damage.
- Do not use if you take warfarin or another blood thinner, without asking your prescriber first, because bleeding risk may rise.
- Do not use if you take diabetes medicine or insulin, without telling your prescriber, because your blood sugar can drop too low.
- Do not use if you are pregnant or breastfeeding and are thinking of supplement doses; keep to normal amounts in food.
- Do not use if you have a known allergy to cinnamon, cassia or Peru balsam.
- Do not use if you have a stomach ulcer (a sore in the stomach lining) or bad reflux, as strong cinnamon can irritate it further.
- Do not use if you are within two weeks of planned surgery or a dental procedure.
- Do not use if you are tempted to swallow cinnamon essential oil — it is never safe to take by mouth and can burn the mouth, throat and gut.
- Do not use if you are considering the dry-powder cinnamon challenge; inhaled powder has caused serious lung injury.
- Do not use if you are giving supplement doses to a child; cinnamon in food is fine, capsules are not.
When should you see a doctor?
See a doctor promptly if you notice yellowing of your skin or the whites of your eyes, dark urine, pain under your right ribs, or deep tiredness after taking cinnamon supplements — these can be signs of liver trouble. Stop the supplement first.
Get urgent help for a swollen face, lips or tongue, a spreading rash, or trouble breathing, which can mean a serious allergic reaction.
Get urgent help if someone swallows cinnamon essential oil or inhales dry cinnamon powder and starts coughing, choking or struggling to breathe.
Call your diabetes team if your blood sugar readings start running low, or if you feel shaky, sweaty or confused after adding cinnamon to your routine.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
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