Healthy Food Onion, A Natural Prevention and Treatment of Insulin Resistance

By Kyle J. Norton

Insulin Resistance is a hallmark of diabetes characterized by the inability of the body to use the insulin produced by the pancreas properly.

In other words, signals sent out by the hormone insulin was ignored by the cell of the muscles, body fat, and liver that process the function to convert glucose into energy.

Epidemiologically, people with insulin resistance are associated with an increased risk of prediabetes, type 2 diabetes and chronic conditions such as heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.

Most cases of insulin resistance in the Western world are involved in the clogged up insulin receptors.
As the signals of hormone insulin are blocked, insulin resistance develops, leading to more production of insulin by the body.

Over time insulin resistance that leads to damage of the beta cell in the pancreas, an early condition of prediabetes and types 2 diabetes.

According to the US statistics, approximately, 60 to 70 million individuals are affected by insulin resistance with 40% of individuals older than 50 years may be at risk for insulin resistance.

Most common risk factors associated with insulin resistance are obesity and hypertension. However, some researchers suggested that the rise of insulin resistance in the US may be correlated to the promotion of a high-fat diet over the past few decades.

Dr. Merat S, the lead scientist wrote, " Contrary to expectation, IR was induced in mice fed the Western diet,,,. The Western diet group had higher average glucose levels (187+/-16 versus 159+/-12 mg/dL) and 4.5-fold higher plasma insulin levels".

The onion is a plant in the genus Allium, belonging to the family Alliaceae, a close relation of garlic. It is often called the "king of vegetables" because of its pungent taste and found in a large number of recipes and preparations spanning almost the totality of the world's cultures. 

Depending on the variety, an onion can be sharp, spicy, tangy, pungent, mild or sweet.

With an aim to find a potential and natural compound for the prevention and treatment insulin resistance, researchers examined the effects of red onions and low doses of the flavonoid, quercetin, increase insulin sensitivity and improve glucose tolerance on an animal model.

The study included a high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity and insulin resistance in C57BL/6J mice that randomly assigned to into groups, fed either a low-fat diet (LF), HFD (HF), HFD + quercetin (HF + Q), or HFD + RO (HF + RO) for 9 weeks.

According to the tested assays, quercetin and RO supplementation decreased HFD-induced fat mass accumulation and insulin resistance (measured by insulin tolerance test) and increased energy expenditure.

Comapred to RO group, HF + Q showed an increase in physical activity levels. 

Furthermore, quercetin and RO similarly increased skeletal muscle mitochondrial numbers associated with insulin sensitivity and decreased beta-oxidation, a metabolic process involving multiple steps by which fatty acid molecules are broken down to produce energy.

In other words, quercetin- and RO-induced improvements in insulin resistance, and energy expenditure through differential mechanisms as mentioned above.

In the countering doxorubicin-induced insulin resistance in breast cancer treatment,
researchers investigated the onion effect on 56 eligible BC patients (aged 30-63 years), diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma.

The intervention of a parallel-design, randomized, triple-blind, controlled clinical trial included subjects assigned in a stratified-random allocation to receive body mass index-dependent 100 to 160 g/d of onion as high onion group (HO; n = 28) or 30 to 40 g/d small onions in low onion group (LO; n = 28) for 8 weeks intervention, following their second cycle of chemotherapy.

In 23 cases complete the study in both groups
* The daily use of HO demonstrated a significant decrease in serum fasting blood glucose and insulin levels compared to LO, over the period of study.

* Posttreatment with HO showed a significant decrease in homeostasis model of assessment-insulin resistance relative to changes in the LO group.

* Compared to the pre- and postdose treatments, HO improved quantitative insulin sensitivity and controls on C-peptide in a dose-dependent manner.

Taken altogether, onion may be considered a remedy for the prevention and treatment of insulin resistance, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Consumption of Fresh Yellow Onion Ameliorates Hyperglycemia and Insulin Resistance in Breast Cancer Patients During Doxorubicin-Based Chemotherapy: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial by Jafarpour-Sadegh F1, Montazeri V1,2, Adili A1, Esfehani A1, Rashidi MR1, Pirouzpanah S. (PubMed)
(2) In vivo effects of dietary quercetin and quercetin-rich red onion extract on skeletal muscle mitochondria, metabolism, and insulin sensitivity by Henagan TM1, Cefalu WT, Ribnicky DM, Noland RC, Dunville K, Campbell WW, Stewart LK, Forney LA, Gettys TW, Chang JS, Morrison CD. (PubMed)
(3) Western-type diets induce insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia in LDL receptor-deficient mice but do not increase aortic atherosclerosis compared with normoinsulinemic mice in which similar plasma cholesterol levels are achieved by a fructose-rich diet by Merat S1, Casanada F, Sutphin M, Palinski W, Reaven PD. (PubMed)