Onion

[massspec]

Hi, Does anyone know how many onions we need to eat to bring blood sugar down.?

 

[Leadinglights]

Hi, Does anyone know how many onions we need to eat to bring blood sugar down.?

Is there any actual scientific evidence that it actually will rather than anecdotal unsubstantiated stories? If so it should say how much would be considered beneficial.
Onions do have a carbohydrate content about 10g per 100g raw onion so you would need to take that into account.

 

[harbottle]

Hi, Does anyone know how many onions we need to eat to bring blood sugar down.?

Interesting. I'd never heard of this before, so I did some googling and found this:

9 Impressive Health Benefits of Onions

Onions are a staple in kitchens around the world and packed with nutrients and plant compounds with powerful health effects. Here are 9 impressive health benefits of onions.

www.healthline.com

A study in 42 people with type 2 diabetes demonstrated that eating 3.5 ounces (100 grams) of fresh red onion reduced fasting blood sugar levels by about 40 mg/dl after four hours (23Trusted Source).

There's a link to this paper:

Preliminary Study of the Clinical Hypoglycemic Effects of Allium cepa (Red Onion) in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Diabetes mellitus is a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by abnormalities of carbohydrate, protein and lipid metabolism. Type 1 diabetes mellitus is an autoimmune disease caused by destruction of pancreatic beta cells and characterized by ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I eat a lot of onion - I absolutely love them, always have done, but never associated them with any benefits of lower BG. (I was aware that they do contain carbs, though,)

 

[mikeyB]

Just a little known fact is that onions, like sugar beet, contain pure sucrose, That's how you can brown them when frying -it's the Maillard reaction you get with sugars.

I fail to see how a vegetable that contains pure sucrose can do anything other than a raise in Blood Glucose. I'm fond of French Onion soup, but it always spikes my BG.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I would not expect onions to reduce my blood glucose levels at all I’m afraid.

In fact, coincidentally someone in the house made French Onion Soup, with one of the early instructions being to caramelise the onions - using the natural sugars that flow out of onions as you cook them to create a rich caramel-like sweetness.

Sadly I think claims about special ‘superfoods’ are often significantly overplayed, and then used as a means to promote products or supplements as an easier way to get the ‘benefits’

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Haha! Snap @mikeyB - beat me to it with the soup reference!

 

[42istheanswer]

The study as reported even shows that it produces an initial higher peak. It shows it as less effective than actual medication but more effective than water - and you have to bear in mind that it was not eaten alongside a normal diet but either instead of totally fasting, or alongside a measured dose of glucose. So it seems to me that what they basically showed was that eating something meant the liver didn't dump glucose. They didn't compare eating onion to eating any other form of carbohydrate or vegetable

 

[harbottle]

There’s not much in that paper, but a substance in onions may have a similar effect to Metformin:

Quercetin for managing type 2 diabetes and its complications, an insight into multitarget therapy

Quercetin, a bioflavonoid abundant in grapefruit, onion, berries, etc., has vast therapeutic potential, especially against Type 2 diabetes and its com…

www.sciencedirect.com

Whether they do or don’t have an affect, I love ‘em and they don’t affect my BG much at all. Although I do only have a small amount in a meal.

 

[massspec]

Hi, Does anyone know how many onions we need to eat to bring blood sugar down.?

Thanks