Easy Health Options... A common vegetable that is high in health-boosting phytochemicals has now been found to help control blood sugar and improve cholesterol.
Nutritionists have long known that onions are rich in natural substances that can boost your health. But a study at Delta State University in Abraka, Nigeria, shows that it can be invaluable for people with diabetes, helping to moderate blood sugar and improving cholesterol.
“Onion is cheap and available and has been used as a nutritional supplement,” says researcher Anthony Ojieh. “It has the potential for use in treating patients with diabetes.”
In lab tests, the researchers analyzed the benefits of giving varying amounts of onion extracts to diabetic animals who were also receiving metformin (a drug commonly used to control diabetes). They also gave metformin and onion extract to three groups of non-diabetic animals who had normal blood sugar to see the effects.
Relatively high doses onion extract significantly – and beneficially – dropped the diabetic animals’ fasting blood sugar levels by 35 to 50 percent.
In addition, the onion reduced their total cholesterol levels, with larger doses having stronger effects.
But there was an interesting side effect of the onion: It caused the non-diabetic animals to gain extra weight although the diabetic animals did not.
Ojieh thinks it made the non-diabetic animals hungrier and when they ate more they put on extra pounds.
“Onion is not high in calories,” Ojieh says. “However, it seems to increase the metabolic rate and, with that, to increase the appetite, leading to an increase in feeding.”
While the onion improved the blood sugar of animals with diabetes, the researchers don’t know exactly why this occurred. “We need to investigate the mechanism by which onion brought about the blood glucose reduction,” Ojieh admits. “We do not yet have an explanation.” Easy Health Options