Bulk Herbs: Onion - powder

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What’s so important about onions? Wrapped beneath their papery skins are dozens of compounds that help lower cholesterol, thin the blood, and prevent hardening of the arteries – all of which can go a long way toward preventing heart disease. The first family of heart-healthy compounds in onions is the flavonoids. Flavonoids are substances in plants that have potent antioxidant powers, meaning that they help prevent disease by sweeping up harmful, cell-damaging oxygen molecules called free radicals, which naturally accumulate in your body.

One particular onion-dwelling flavonoids called quercetin has been shown to help knock out heart disease in two ways. One, it helps prevent the dangerous low-density lipoprotein form of cholesterol from oxidizing, which is the process that makes it stick to artery walls. Two, it helps prevent platelets in blood from sticking together and forming harmful clots.

A second group of protective compounds in onions are the same ones that make you cry – the sulfur compounds. Experts say that these compounds raise your levels of beneficial high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which helps keep plaque from sticking to artery walls. At the same time, they lower levels of dangerous blood fats called triglycerides, which helps make blood thinner, keeping your blood pressure in the safety zone.

(Excerpt from Left for Dead)

Onion has been lauded for both its medicinal benefits and its culinary contributions for over 5,000 years. Like garlic, its herbal cousin, onion has been looked upon as crue0all in folk medicine and prescribed for almost every scourge afflicting man or beast.

No ordinary cooking herb, onion has been used through out recording history as a hart tonic, blood purifier, expectorant, antibiotic, contraceptive, diuretic, blood thinner, antiseptic, digestive aid, sedative and aphrodisiac.

One of the first plants to be cultivated, onion has been used for centuries all over the world to treat such ailments as arthritis, arteriosclerosis, asthma, bronchitis, baldness, cholera, colds, cancer, constipation, diabetes, dandruff, dysentery, dropsy, dyspepsia, epilepsy, gangrene, hypertension, influenza, gas jaundice, laryngitis, leprosy, lead poisoning, malaria, measles, meningitis, rheumatism, ringworm, scurvy, smallpox, tuberculosis and typhoid.

An onion a day was the prescription Dr. Victor Gurewich, a professor of medicine at Tufts University, gave his heart patients to help boost their low HDL cholesterol levels. HDL (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol is the good type of cholesterol that removes the destructive LDL cholesterol from the blood to the liver where it can be destroyed. High HDL cholesterol levels offer protection against the damaging effects of blood cholesterol and heart attack. Low HDL levels increase the risk of heart attack.

Dr. Gurewich’s patients had all suffered heart attacks and their HDL levels were well below the normal 25 percent reading. Gurewich has tried several convention treatments without avail when a colleague from Poland suggested onions. The fellow doctor had read folklore about the benefits of onions including a recommendation in an ancient Egyptian papyrus.

Dr. Gurewich, director of the vascular laboratory at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Boston and a leading cardiologist, was already familiar with some of onion’s benefits to the blood. He also knew there would be no side effects unlike commonly prescribed therapeutic drugs.

Gurewich started his patients on one medium-sized raw onion a day either whole or in capsules. After a month of treatment the HDL levels of Gurewich’s patients rose an average of 30 percent, boosting them into the normal range. With further study, Gurewich found that only half a medium raw onion was as effective as a whole onion.

Heat damaged onions’ ability to stimulate the production of HDL cholesterol so cooked onions had little effect on HDL levels. The stronger and fresher the onion, the more dramatic the increase in HDL levels.

In addition to onion’s effect on HDL cholesterol, Gurewich discovered a myriad of other cardiovascular benefits.

Cooked or raw onions contain adenosine, a compound known to lower blood pressure by inhibiting the tendency of platelets to stick together and form clots. Besides preventing clots from forming, onion stimulates the body’s fibrinolytic system helping to dissolve clots that have already formed. This is very important because, according to the famous Framingham Heart Study of Massachusetts, men with high levels of fibrinogen (the substance that form the clots) are good candidates for stroke and coronary artery disease.

Studies show an abundance of fibrinogen in the blood can be more dangerous than high blood pressure. Blood clots can obstruct the arteries cutting off the oxygen that sustains the heart muscle and brain cells. Onions attack fibrinogen.

Additionally, by stimulating the fibrinolytic system to kill the fibrinogen, onions also offset the damage done by a high fat diet. High fat meals boost clot-forming fibrinogen, thicken blood and increase detrimental cholesterol levels.

Adding onion to a high fat diet lowered blood cholesterol, thinned blood, prevented platelet clumping and inhibited blood clotting according to a 1966 study by D. N. N. Gupta at K. G. Medical College in Lucknow, India. Just two ounces of lightly fried onions added to a meal packed with ninety percent fat including butter, cream, and eggs, proved to be a powerful antidote to the ill effects associated with a high fat diet.

Whether boiled, raw, dried or fried, subsequent studies showed onions partially cleaned the blood of polluting effect of a diet high in fat. In view of these findings, it seems wise to top your burger with onion or sprinkle it win that cheese souffle.

The French added onions to their horses’ diet to help break up blood clots in the beasts’ legs. Obviously, they were aware of the blood-thinning properties of onion.

In 1923, researchers found that onion also lowered blood sugar. Indian researchers discovered that raw onion, boiled onion and onion extract lowered blood sugar in patients who had just taken glucose.

Onions’ value as a natural antibiotic was first established in the west by Louis Pasteur. In the mid-1800s Pasteur declared both garlic and onion antibacterial. Onion has proven itself in battle against a long list of deadly bacteria including E. coli and Salmonella.

Doctors treating Soviet soldiers’ wounds during World War 2, reported rapid relief of pain and quick healing using the vapors from onion paste. The soviets also employed onion as an antiseptic. Chief Investigator B. Tokin, a Soviet scientist claimed that chewing raw onion for 3-8 minutes sterilized the mouth.

George Washington lauded onions as cure for the common cold. If he had a cold, Washington said he ate a hot roasted onion before bed.

Dr. Irwin Ziment agreed with Washington’s estimation of onion as a cold remedy. Dr. Ziment, a pulmonary specialist, said the pungent qualities of onion breaks up the mucous in the lungs and helps move it into the throat where it can be coughed up. As an expectorant, onion is beneficial in the treatment of chronic bronchitis, according to Dr. Ziment.

The value of onion in preventing cancer is beginning to be explored in earnest. Recent studies have found that concentrated sulfur compounds in onion can turn off cell changes preceding cancer development. Propylsufide in onion blocked the action of enzymes needed to unleash potent cancer-causing substances according to a study by the M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute.

In addition to promising results showing onions’ ability to prevent cancer, the plant may stop the spread of cancer that has already started to grow. Researchers at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine put onion extract on oral cancer cells from animals and found that it inhibited the growth of the cancer cells and even destroyed some of them. Encouraged by onion’s demonstrated ability to fend off cancer, the National Cancer Institute is funding further study.

When using onion to treat a variety of ailments from the common cold to heart disease the rule of thumb is “more is better.” Onion benefits most those who eat it most often.

Half a medium size raw onion a day boosts the good HDL cholesterol level by up to 30 percent. Just a tablespoon of cooked onions or about 2 ounces of raw ones offers a potent antidote for the blood pollution caused by a high fat meal. Raw or cooked half a cup of onions a day will keep your circulatory system in good shape.