Just received an email from HSI's Northstar Nutritionals, this info about onions.
Western Yellow onions and shallots are the best but all onions are good. Tests
were done using onion extracts on coln cancer cells showing a 40% reduction.
Onions contain quercetin and phenols. The info said too, that the onion extracts
actually stopped the cancer cells from any further growth. WOW!

They aren't selling anything for a change, just giving this info on onions and
encouraging people to eat more onions, raw is better but even cooked are
helpful.

__________________
May you always have..Love to Share, Health to Spare, and Friends that Care!

I have onions almost every day in my French omelette fried in coconut oil.

I love onions, raw or carmelized!! Pinto beans, ham hocks and lots of fresh chopped onion on top, with a couple of pieces of cornbread...and I'm in Heaven!! Kinda tells you a little about my roots, huh?!

Me too nightowl! And any kind of Steak, Roast or Liver with them carmelized. With
Hamburgers and Bratwurst I like 'em raw tho.

I wonder if heating the onions would affect the results of the test. Sometimes heating destroys necessary components. Sometimes heating/cooking actually enhances them; such as tomatoes for their lycopene. I wonder if they tested garlic for the same properties.

__________________
- Jim
https://www.natmedtalk.com/blogs/jfh

I'm not sure whether you would get the same medicinal results with cooked onion as raw. I've read that raw crushed or finely minced raw garlic is best, and yet I healed my boyfriend's abcessed tooth with roasted garlic once. I just cut a small amount off the tops of the heads, rinsed them and wrapped them in foil. I roasted them in the oven till just soft, but can't remember how long that was...20 or 30 minutes or so at 350 degrees. When cooled slightly, I squeezed the garlic paste into a small dish. Bob loved garlic and ate a heaping teaspoon at a time.

The article said that cooked onions were almost as beneficial as raw onions.
However, they said that Western Yellow Onions and Shallots showed the
greatest benefits, with other kinds like red onions, white onions, etc still
beneficial, just less so.

I love an onion with a bite! I get angry when my daughter buys Walla-Walla Sweet-type onions with almost no flavor. (I live with her) Restaurants have gone to tasteless red or sweet onions too. When I order a hamburger with onions it's because I'm hungry for the strong taste of onions! Why use them at all if you can't taste them. It looks as though the taste is a good guide as to how good they are for you too, EarlyBird.

I would love to eat any onions at all.

Unfortunately, something contained in Onions make my intestines swell shut. I wish I knew why this happens. Of course, when you can't have something, that makes it all the more appealing.

Dan

But i don't like to eat onions. Other ways to guard colon cancer??

How about colon cleansing?

cherieang,

I know aspirin is frowned upon, but I don't think taking a couple of aspirin a week would hurt anyone, especially if taken with food. Here is an article sent to me by Life Extention. I also just read the colon article from their website which also has a more lengthy discussion about using aspirin to protect from colon cancer.
**********************

Colorectal cancer patients find help in aspirin bottle: study
Agence France-Presse

08-12-09

A daily dose of aspirin decreased the risk of mortality in patients with colorectal cancer, a study released Wednesday found.

It has been known for some time that aspirin use reduced the risk of developing colorectal cancer.

But this study, which needs to be confirmed by additional research, according to its authors, found that in women and men a dose of aspirin could cut mortality rates among those already diagnosed with the disease.

The study, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), looked at the cases of 1,279 men and women diagnosed with non-metastasizing colorectal cancer at different stages, from 1980-2008.

One of two groups took a regular dose of aspirin (325 mg) at least twice a week (for a total of 650 mg or more per week).

Patients already diagnosed with colorectal cancer and on the aspirin dose were 29 percent less likely to die of colorectal cancer and 21 percent less likely do die overall.

Aspirin is likely at least in part to prevent tumor growth by inhibiting the production of COX-2, an enzyme that promotes cell proliferation "overexpressed," for example, in colorectal tumors.

Among those patients known to have a COX-2 positive tumor, the death rate among aspirin takers plunged by 61 percent. Overall aspirin reduced mortality by 38 percent for this group.

"These results suggest aspirin may influence the biology of established colorectal tumors in addition to preventing their recurrence," said Andrew Chan, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School.

vmt/mdl/ch

Health-US-cancer
***************************
Here's another suggestion but it's an animal study. (Quercetin is also in onions, as well as apples):


February 11, 2009

Quercetin shown to help protect against colon cancer by reducing inflammation


In research published in the January, 2009 issue of the Journal of Nutrition, scientists at Texas A & M University report their finding of a mechanism for quercetin against the development of colon cancer. Quercetin is a molecule found in plant foods such as onions, apples and peppers which has previously shown a protective effect against the disease.

For their research, Texas AgriLife Research scientist Dr Nancy Turner and her colleagues gave 40 rats diets supplemented with or without quercetin. During the second and fourth weeks of the experiment, the animals were injected with azoxymethane, a carcinogen used to induce colon cancer in rodents, or with saline as a control. Four weeks following the last injection, the rats� colons were examined.

Animals that received quercetin had fewer high multiplicity aberrant crypt foci, a marker or predictor of tumor formation that had previously been shown to be reduced by quercetin. "Early lesions in a colon are some of the first true changes in the colon that can be observed visually," Dr Turner remarked. "This is not just something you see in our animal model. You see it in human patients as well."

Quercetin was also associated with a reduction in cell proliferation and an increase in apoptosis compared with that observed in animals that received unsupplemented diets. "We were able to decrease the number of cells that were proliferating in the colon,� stated Dr Turner. �And we were able to increase the number of cells that were undergoing apoptosis. So the net effect of that is, we were able to maintain almost a normal number of cells."

The team found a reduction in proinflammatory enzymes known as COX-1 and COX-2 in rats that received quercetin. An increase in COX-1 has been observed prior to the elevation of COX-2 that occurs in colon cancer. The authors concluded that �It is possible the effects on proliferation and apoptosis resulted from the tendency for quercetin to suppress the expression of proinflammatory mediators.�

"COX-2 is an inducible protein that is expressed in the body when there is some kind of external stimulus to a cell,� Dr Turner explained. �We think of high levels of COX-2 as being a bad thing. We did see that both groups � both the control groups and the carcinogen-injected groups that were consuming quercetin in their diets � had lower levels of both COX-1 and COX-2. So that would tend to suggest that there may be opportunity for quercetin to suppress tumor development."

"The nice thing is that albeit high relative to what you see in the American diet, the level used in this study is actually similar to what can be achieved in diets around the world such as in, say, the Mediterranean-style diets," Dr Turner commented. "So it's not an unachievable goal for us good ol' Americans if we do the right thing with our food consumption."
************************

I had three precancerous polyps in my colon about 6 years ago but I was lucky that the cancer hadn't quite gotten into the stem that attaches to the colon wall. I was supposed to have a follow-up examination 6 months later but other life situations caused me to put off having it done until about 6 weeks ago. I only had one polyp this time and it wasn't cancerous. I believe that is because I take 250 mg of high quality Resveratrol every day and have for several years. Bill Sardi made a comment in one of his articles that "Resveratrol is 100 anti-cancer drugs in one." The only other supplement that I have been consistant with is high-dose vitamin D3 for close to a year. I have settled into taking 5,000 IU per day until I check it again, soon, but I was low on D3 before and brought it up higher than normal for a while. I want to keep it a little above normal.

PolypsTx.Dr Rowen

Second Opinion Health Alerts are a complimentary
e-mail service from the Second Opinion health
newsletter written by Robert J. Rowen, MD.

************************************************** ****
If Cancer Runs in Your Family, Read This �

As you probably know, cancer runs in families. One of
the most common cancers with a genetic link is colon
cancer.

Many people who get colon cancer have a condition call
familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). This is a genetic
problem that causes hundreds of polyps in the colon.
These polyps can eventually develop into colon cancer.

A recent study found that FAP can be treated with nutritional
supplements. In the study, researchers took five people with
FAP and gave them 480 mg curcumin and 20 mg quercetin, three
times daily for six months. Then they evaluated the size and
number of polyps in their intestines and rectums.

The number of polyps decreased in all five by an average 60+%.
And the size of those that remained decreased by 51%. There
were no side effects from the supplements.

This was a small study. However, its results are compelling.
Here, five people with extremely high risk for colon cancer
saw their risk decline substantially. All they did was take
these two cheap and common supplements.

And because these two supplements are powerful anti-inflammatories
and antioxidants, I wouldn�t be surprised if they also reduce the
risk of other cancers as well.

One final note: I�ve had great success over the years with vitamin
A (100,000 IU daily) and folic acid (five mg, three times daily)
supplements. They really help keep polyps from coming back.

So if you have polyps or a family history of colon cancer, take
vitamin A and folic acid, as well as curcumin and quercetin.
You can find all four at any good health food store.

Yours for better health and medical freedom,
Robert Jay Rowen, MD

Ref: Cruz-Correa, M., D.A. Shoskes, et al. �Combination Treatment
With Curcumin and Quercetin of Adenomas in Familial Adenomatous
Polyposis,� Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol., 2006, June 4.
************************************************** **********

__________________
"The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, - receptive to Truth and Love" Mary Baker Eddy
Visit www.HealthSalon.org

Good article Arrow. I really like Dr. Rowen. I was taking quercetin hap-hazzardly before my last colonoscopy. I'll try to be a little better about taking the other vitamins. I didn't know there was a genetic link.

Guess part of my post got lost. I had written that my husband had a colonoscopy about 4 years ago and had 23 polyps removed. So we did Rowens program, minus the vitamin A for about 6 months, then continued but more haphazardly with reduced dosage of folate every day as well as the rest.

He had a repeat colonoscopy a couple of weeks ago and they only removed one polyp. My last colonscopy was about 11 years ago where they removed only one. This past month clean as a whistle for me!

That's a great improvement Arrow! Sounds like the supplements helped. I think I've read that polyps normally grow slow so you only need a test every 5 years or so...but for some reason my doctor told me to come back in three years this time. Must be my good looking colon!