Posted on 10/09/2010 4:50:39 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Can eating red onions lower your risk for heart attack and stroke? A new study suggests the answer to that question may be yes.
At least if you're a hamster.
Scientists in Hong Kong fed crushed onions to hamsters that had been on a high-cholesterol diet. After eight weeks, the little guys' levels of low-densitiy lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol fell by 20 percent, the Daily Mail reported.
That's good news, because elevated LDL cholesterol levels are linked to cardiovascular disease.
At the same time, there was no decline in the hamsters' levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol - the good stuff.
These findings "support the claim that the regular consumption of onion reduces the risk of coronary heart disease," lead researcher Zhen Yu Chen of the Chinese University of Hong Kong said, according to the newspaper.
The onions - sweeter than the more familiar white variety - are a staple of Indian and Mediterranean cooking.
Red onions may have other health benefits as well. They seem to contain compounds that slow the growth of colon and liver cancer cells, according to a 2004 study published in the "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry."
Does all this mean that people who avoid onions are missing out on their health benefits?
It's enough to make you cry.
Lookee.
Hopefully garlic does the same — I eat tons of both.
I love red onions but they don’t love me.
And I wish the article stated just how much red onion these hamsters were fed. The change in LDL could have been just because of an increase in fiber from the onions, if they were fed a lot of them.
Me too! Food of the Gods. I could live on both and a hearty beer as a beverage.
..."1/2 pounder wit cheezzz,toasted bun,tangy mouse sauce,and and and raw red onion....???...aw jeeezzz, I know I got dry plastic little chucks of whateva when I open my eyes"
I have a well balanced diet then…
I place half a Red Onion on my 1 Pound Grease Bomb, along with lettuce mayo pickle and mustard…mmmmm mmmm good. And for a vegi… large side of fries with Spicy BBQ sauce.
In another multimillion stimulus study:
When the scientwists ripped the legs from the hamsters and said jump, hamsters did not jump.
Concaclusion: eating to much onion makes them deaf!
How much do you need to eat to get the benefit? An onion a day keeps everyone away.
And it was funny too!
But hamster farts contribute to Glow Bull Warming.
"Onions have long been known to have many health benefits including preventing cancer, heart disease and common coughs and colds. It has been found that some parts of the world where onion consumption is high have even been shown to have much lower cancer rates.
"For example in Georgia, in the US, where the small, sweet Videlia onion is grown the number of stomach cancer diagnoses are a half the average for the rest of the country. In China, where people eat more onions and garlic than anywhere else in the world, the risk of stomach cancer is 40% lower than average. " The hamsters were fed "crushed" red onion --- presumably raw --- but the people cited above, I would assume, ate the onion both in raw and cooked form.
Onions supposedly have a lot of a fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), which are extremely effective in feeding and multiplying your friendly gut microorganisms. (They say a pre-biotic like FOS is even better for this purpose than a pro-biotic like yogurt.)
Western Yellow, New York Bold, and Northern Red onions have the richest concentration of flavonoids and phenolics, providing them with the greatest antioxidant and anti-proliferative activity of 10 onions tested.
Awwww, hamster farts. How cu-u-u-ute...
Garlic. Don’t forget the wine to wash it down — lowers cholesterol too. And the chocolate chaser. Chocolate, of course, you eat sacrificially — for others — because it keeps your moods even.
No, cream cheese has lots of K2, important for whatever it’s important for. Mmm. I’ll confess to liking cream cheese, red onion, and sardine on a saltine cracker. Even despite my husband’s wrinkled nose...
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