Cinnamon, Deer, Tulips, and Type II Diabetes

We planted some tulips two years ago. Before they really starting blooming, deer came and ate them to nubs.

This year I tried a new deer repellent, and so far it is working. The magic ingredient appears to be cinnamon oil.

Now cinnamon is a wonderful spice. And the name cinnamon is associated with several species of plants, and has many exotic uses, according to the Wikipedia Gods. But I've never seen it used as a deer repellent before. Maybe I'll add this to the wiki page.

In the meantime, I happen to be writing about diabetes and cinnamon for my day job. Some Pakistani researchers published results in the journal Diabetes Care in 2003 that claimed that cinnamon could improve glycemic control (control of blood sugar, for you non-diabetics and non-medical folks out there). Since then, researchers have found little further data that supports that claim. But here is the Wikipedia article saying that the Pakistani researchers used cassia, not what we think of as cinnamon, so we may be comparing apples to, er, cinnamon. So I have some more digging to do.

Thanks to my previously munched tulips, I have researched cinnamon a little more than I would have normally, and found something useful to add to my work, along with a few more dark alleys to run down.