Healthy Food Onion Promotes the Normal Vascular Functioning

By Kyle J. Norton

Vascular protection is the process to protect the function of blood vessel associated with the reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

More precisely, vascular protection is the mediation to enhance endothelial cell survival, suppression of thrombosis, and anti-inflammation accompanied by the inhibition of vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation.

Vascular dysfunction is a condition that causes arterial stiffness, microvascular and endothelial dysfunction and increases the risk of CVD.

Endothelial cells found in the endothelium that line the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels by separating the circulating blood or lymph in the lumen and the rest of the vessel wall process some main functions, including acting as a semi-selective barrier between the vessel lumen and surrounding tissue and transporting white blood cells into and out of the bloodstream.

Endothelial dysfunction is a medical condition that reduces the function of the endothelium caused by the failure of the endothelial inner lining of the small arteries to function normally, affecting the cardio-functioning.

Epidemiologically, endothelial dysfunction has been found to induce cardiovascular conditions, including coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension, and diastolic dysfunction.

Coagulation is a process of blood clotting. Overexpression of coagulation has been found to induce thrombosis.

Inflammation associated with plaque biology has been found to trigger the thrombotic complications and arterial stiffness of atherosclerosis.

Microvascular dysfunction is a condition that causes abnormal function of the small blood vessels feeding the heart muscle, leading to heart diseases and stroke.

Collectively, cardiovascular protection plays a critical role to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

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.

On finding a potent ingredient to protect the blood vessel against inflammation, researchers investigated the vascular protective effects of onion and garlic on vascular inflammation in an animal model.

The study included 30-day-old male Wistar rats that were assigned to control (C), F (10% fructose in drinking water), F+T (tempol 1 mM as control antioxidant), F+G, and F+O with aqueous G and O extracts administered orally in doses of 150 and 400 mg/kg/d respectively, followed by injection of tempol during the last 8 weeks of a 14-week period.

Fructose-fed rats (FFR) before treatment of garlic and onion had developed insulin resistance, aortic NADPH oxidase activity associated with the elevated levels of free radicals.

Furthermore, systolic blood pressure and plasma TBARS associated with lipid peroxidation and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) expression in mesenteric arteries were also found to increase in the fructose-fed rats (FFR) rats.

In other words, fructose-fed rats (FFR) showed a significant plaque accumulation in the arteries.

Moreover, endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) associated with cardioprotective activity in the heart was also decreased in the FFR rats.

Administration of garlic and onion to FFR rats reversed all parameters involved in cardiovascular dysfunction were inhibited observed by the reduced levels of oxidative stress, increased eNOS activity, and also attenuated VCAM-1 expression.

Taken altogether, onion used alone or combined with garlic may be considered remedies for vascular protection, 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) Garlic and onion attenuates vascular inflammation and oxidative stress in fructose-fed rats by Vazquez-Prieto MA1, Rodriguez Lanzi C, Lembo C, Galmarini CR, Miatello RM. (PubMed)
(2) Factors modulating bioavailability of quercetin-related flavonoids and the consequences of their vascular function by Terao J. (PubMed)