If you’re looking to increase your testosterone levels you will need to carefully examine your lifestyle. Do you lift weights regularly? Do you eat clean? Do you eat well? Are you taking a natural testosterone-boosting supplement? If you answered positively to most of these questions that you are already halfway there.
We presume you are aware of how important your diet is in regards to getting results from any muscle, strength or conditioning training program. You can bust your a*s all day in the gym, but if your diet isn’t dialed in then you’re simply wasting your time. In this article, we will examine onion’s properties and if this healthy vegetable can be a positive factor in optimizing your hormonal state.
The battle for greater testosterone levels
Once men reach the age of 30 their T-levels start decreasing gradually at a rate of 1% with each passing year. You will slowly start to lose your muscle mass, you will feel weaker and your libido will plummet, which is why you have to do everything in your power to fight the diminishing hormone levels and keep them high. Both nutrition and training play a fundamental role in this struggle and studies suggest that some foods are superior to others at increasing your T-levels. One of these foods is the onion.
Onions’ health benefits
The onion bulb (Allium cepa) is a vegetable with a distinctive pungent taste and smell. Originally grown in Asia, this vegetable is used in different national cuisines – from Mexican to French cuisine and there is rarely a cuisine in the world in which the onion is not featured. It is perhaps one of the most commonly eaten vegetables and its production has increased by more than 25% over the past decade with current production being approximately 45 million tonnes a year.
This estimation makes it the second most produced agricultural article after tomatoes. It has long been used because of its numerous health benefits and positive impact on many diseases. They have a low number of calories and are rich in vitamins B and C. Onions also have a high fiber content as well as a big range of micronutrients such as calcium, potassium, and magnesium. They are also rich in amino acid sulfoxides. This is actually the reason why you cry when you start chopping them. It is the chemical that is responsible for this when it comes into contact with the water present in your eyes.
Read more about onions’ benefits here : 4 Reasons Onions Could be the Next Super-Food
Onions are rich in antioxidants
This vegetable has a high amount of antioxidants, especially flavonoids, which is a type of polyphenol. Onions are basically all-in-one package when it comes to improving your overall health and sense of well-being. Polyphenols aid in improving the health of the digestive system and reduce the risk of developing a variety of neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases. The can also help you maintain a healthy weight more easily.
Quercetin
Even though the dark red onion has a high amount of the polyphenol anthocyanin, the majority of varieties also contain another chemical known as quercetin, which is a powerful antioxidant which has anti-inflammatory properties. After tea leaves, onions are perhaps one of the best sources of quercetin that you will find. Numerous studies have shown that consuming quercetin can decrease the absorption of fatty acids, reduce the damage incurred by free radicals, as well as protect against a multitude of different types of cancer. One study concluded that “onions are hypolipidaemic, antithrombotic, diaphoretic, hypotensive, antidiabetic, antibiotic, antiatherogenic and possess anticancerous properties”.
Can onions be used as a natural testosterone boosting supplement?
When thinking about some natural nutrients which might help you optimize your testosterone levels you may not necessarily at first think of onions. However, studies have shown that onions may have an important role in increasing testosterone levels.
Improved male hormone levels
In one study, male Wister rats were given onion juice over a 20-day period. It was found that their testosterone levels increased by a whooping 200%. And that’s not all. 4 grams per kg of bodyweight of onion juice also increase luteinizing hormone levels, which is the hormone responsible for triggering testosterone production in the male glands. These improvements also helped to increase sperm mobility as well as concentration.
Larger testes
Even though an old study, a research paper released in a 1967 version of Plant Foods for Human Nutrition found that when rats were given onion juice, their testes’ size increased by 20%. Their reproductive material quantity increased as well, in both the young and old rats.
Combining onion and zinc
A study similar to the one above also administered onion extract on male rates. This time scientists wanted to examine how it compared to the well-known testosterone-boosting compound zinc. The team of scientists gave the 160 rats zinc and onion in three variations: some rats were given only onion, some were given only zinc and other were given a combination of both onion and zinc. What was the result? Testosterone levels increased in the groups that ate only onion and zinc (the zinc group experienced greater increase), but even more significantly in the group that ate both zinc and onion.
Could onion juice become the main testosterone booster in the future?
It could be if we used an extract, but let’s be frank here. Although it’s cheap and easily accessible, it would take a pretty determined person to drink a glass of onion juice every day in the quest for increased testosterone levels. And let’s not forget that the research was done on rats, not men, so one should be cautious when trying to elicit the same results on oneself. It absolutely won’t hurt if you consume onions in your salad, but drinking about 200ml of onion juice seems too much.
Will eating onions give you better results?
It might, especially when you combine it with a well-researched and proven supplement, like zinc. It should be noted that studies have repeatedly shown that it is a great testosterone booster on its own, let alone when mixed with onion juice. And to make sure that you don’t miss out on the increased luteinizing hormone levels, D-Aspartic acid (DAA) will increase your LH levels, in the same fashion, onion juice does.
