ONIONS ANOTHER MAGICAL HEALTHY DIET

Onions and heart

1. To help keep our blood free of clots, and make the most of the health benefits of onions, eat them both raw and cooked. 

2. Prescribing onions to heart patients is a routine thing amongst cardiologists.

3. Here are some of the things that onions can do for our heart:

(i) Boost beneficial HDL cholesterol

(ii) Thin the blood

(iii) Retard blood clotting

(iv) Lower total blood cholesterol

(v) Lower triglycerides

(vi) Lower blood pressure.

Onions are a rich source of quercitin

1. It is the richest dietary source of quercitin, a potent antioxidant flavonoid (also found in shallots, yellow and red onions), which is found on and near the skin and is particularly linked to the health benefits of onions.

2. Quercitin thins the blood, lowers cholesterol, raises good-type HDL cholesterol, prevents blood

clots, fights asthma, chronic bronchitis, hay fever, diabetes, atherosclerosis and infections and is specifically linked to inhibiting human stomach cancer.

 3. It is also an anti-inflammatory, antibiotic and antiviral. It is also a sedative. So far, there is no better food source of quercitin than onion skins.

Detoxify your body with onions

1. Onions contain a variety of organic sulphur compounds that provide health benefits.

2. Sulphur-containing amino acids are found in onions as well as garlic and eggs.

3. These specific amino acids are called methionine and cystine. Amongst other things, they are very good at detoxifying our body from heavy metals.

4. In fact, they are able to latch on to mercury, cadmium and lead and escort them out of the body.

5. Onions also contain vitamin C, which is excellent at detoxifying the body and is effective in removing lead, arsenic and cadmium. So increasing consumption of onions can help our body to get rid of these harmful metals.

Cancer prevention

1. Studies have revealed that the antioxidants present in onions can protect us against cancer by reducing the DNA damage in cells caused by free radicals.

2. All onions and onion relatives (garlic, leeks, chives and scallions or spring onions) are rich in organosulfur compounds, which have been shown to help prevent cancer in lab animals.

3. In fact, an onion extract was found to destroy tumour cells in test tubes and arrest tumour growth when the cells were implanted in rats.

4. The onion extract was shown to be unusually nontoxic, since a dose as high as forty times that of the dose required to kill the tumour cells had no adverse effect on the host.

5. In addition, shallots have been shown to exhibit significant activityagainst leukaemia in mice.

Other health benefits of onions

1. Onions have also been shown to have a significant blood sugar lowering action, even comparable to some prescription drugs.

2. The active compound that seems to be responsible for lowering glucose works by competing with insulin for breakdown sites in the liver, thereby increasing the lifespan of insulin.

3. Onions have historically been used to treat asthma, too. Their action on asthma is due to their ability to inhibit the production of compounds that cause the bronchial muscle to spasm and relax.

4. Onions have potent antibacterial activity, destroying many disease- causing pathogens, including E.coli and salmonella.

5. The flavonoids in onion tend to be more concentrated in the outer layers of the flesh. To maximise health benefits, peel off as little of the fleshy, edible portion as possible when removing the onion’s outermost paper layer. Even a small amount of overpeeling can result in unwanted loss of flavonoids. For example, a red onion can lose about 20 per cent of its quercetin and almost 75 per cent of its anthocyanins if it is overpeeled.

6. The total polyphenol content of onions is much higher than many people expect. (Polyphenols are one of the largest categories of phytonutrients in food. This category includes all flavonoids as well as  tannins.) The total polyphenol content of onions is not only higher than its fellow allium vegetables, garlic and leeks, but also higher than tomatoes, carrots and red bell pepper. In the French diet, only six vegetables (artichoke heart, parsley, brussels sprouts, shallot, broccoli and celery) have a higher polyphenol content than onion. Since the French diet has been of special interest to researchers in terms of disease  prevention, onion’s strong polyphenol contribution will very likely lead to follow-up studies that pay closer attention to this unique allium vegetable