![\"Cinnamon\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/iStock9049274Medium_lg.jpg\" "\\"Cinnamon\\"")
<\/a>But while the sales of popular dietary supplements and herbal remedies remain strong in the current economy, UConn pharmacists caution that such products often escape Federal Drug Administration review and that their benefits may be grossly exaggerated or worse, potentially dangerous to a person\u2019s health.<\/p>\nResearchers with the UConn\/Hartford Hospital Evidence-based Practice Center<\/a> recently took a closer look at five popular dietary supplements and found mixed results in regards to their health benefits.<\/p>\n The group looked at the health benefits of consuming barley, cinnamon, garlic, glucomannan, and almonds. Here is a summary of their findings:<\/p>\n The researchers\u2019 findings were based on a systematic review of existing research literature, which was analyzed and evaluated to weed out questionable or marginal findings and to highlight significant findings and trends. The findings have been published in various academic journals over the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cThis gives us a snapshot evaluation at this time of the best quality literature that is out there,\u201d says C. Michael White, a UConn professor of pharmacy practice and director of the Evidence-based Practice Center in Hartford.<\/p>\n The Evidence-based Practice Center conducted meta-analyses on the different products as a public service, and was not paid by any commercial entity to perform the studies on behalf of a certain product.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something we do because we think it is very important to do it,\u201d says White. \u201cNo one is doing it, because there is no money in it.\u201d<\/p>\n White says it is important to provide people who may hold common health perceptions about cinnamon or almonds with scientific-based analysis, so they are better informed about what they are consuming and how it may affect their bodies.<\/p>\n Craig Coleman, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at UConn and co-director of the Evidence-based Practice Center, served as the primary investigator for several of the studies. He says, \u201cWhile barley, garlic, and glucomannan may provide some benefits, there is no credible evidence when you pool the studies together that cinnamon has beneficial lipid properties or significant impact on glucose control.\u201d<\/p>\n Olivia Phung, a UConn research fellow working with White in the Evidence-Based Practice Center, also participated in the research. \u201cEating almonds lowers total cholesterol,\u201d Phung says. \u201cBut in doing that, it also lowers your high-density lipoprotein or your good cholesterol.\u201d<\/p>\n Adds White, \u201cThe average citizen doesn\u2019t know which products are good, which products are bad, and which ones don\u2019t do anything. Many of these products are not tested and reviewed by the federal Food and Drug Administration. It\u2019s like the wild, wild West. Over time, we hope to create a body of work that consumers can rely on to make good choices about their personal health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UConn pharmacists conducted a review of the health benefits of five popular dietary supplements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-8152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 04:32:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8152"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36940,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8152\/revisions\/36940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8152"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=8152"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
<\/a>Barley<\/strong>: Adding hearty amounts of barley fiber to your diet is <\/strong>good for you. Barley helps significantly lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, the bad cholesterol, and triglycerides. It does appear to impact high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, the good cholesterol.<\/li>\n<\/a>Garlic and cholesterol<\/strong>: Consuming garlic reduces total cholesterol to a modest extent, due mostly to a modest reduction of triglycerides, but shows no appreciable lowering of LDL (bad cholesterol) or elevation of HDL (good cholesterol). Patients taking Kwai\u00ae brand garlic, without dietary modification or counseling, appeared to have a greater lowering of triglyceride levels than those taking other garlic powder formulations, garlic oil, and aged extracts. If garlic significantly reduces triglyceride levels in patients with elevated triglycerides without elevating bad cholesterol levels and reacts well with other standard cholesterol-lowering treatments like niacin, it could be an important adjunctive therapy for those who may not be able to tolerate standard therapies or who seek natural therapies. More study in this area is warranted.<\/li>\n