An onion extract has been shown to greatly lower high blood sugar, as well as total cholesterol levels — opening the door to a promising potential new treatment for diabetes.
The findings, based on experiments involving diabetic rats also given the antidiabetic drug metformin, were presented this week at The Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego.
"Onion is cheap and available and has been used as a nutritional supplement," said lead researcher Anthony Ojieh, M.D., of Delta State University in Abraka, Nigeria. "It has the potential for use in treating patients with diabetes."
For the study, researchers fed three groups of rats with medically induced diabetes metformin and varying doses of onion extract to see if it would enhance the drug's effects. They also gave metformin and onion extract to three groups of non-diabetic rats with normal blood sugar, for comparison.
The results showed two doses of extract from onion bulbs strongly reduced fasting blood sugar levels in diabetic rats by 50 percent and 35 percent, respectively, Ojieh reported. It also lowered the total cholesterol level in diabetic rats, with the two larger doses again having the greatest effects.
"We need to investigate the mechanism by which onion brought about the blood glucose reduction," Ojieh said. "We do not yet have an explanation."
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