2024-05-03 19:53:27
The trick of leaving an onion in the room when we have a cold is a typical grandmother’s remedy without any scientific evidence. However, there are reasons why you can even understand the error of believing that it works. However, it is much more difficult to understand why there are people who introduce an onion in your sock to cure all kinds of diseases. Not just colds. On some websites you can read that it helps improve circulation, eliminate toxins, strengthen the immune system and, be careful, improve foot odor.
However, there is not the slightest evidence about the effectiveness of this remedy. Supposedly, it is a trick based on the union of two beliefs, one with some scientific support and one with none.
First of all, it is true that onion contains substances beneficial to health, some of them with a proven antimicrobial power. But why did you decide to put the onion inside the sock? This is where that second no-evidence issue comes into play. Supposedly, when you put this remedy against the foot, it presses 6 of the 12 meridians through which vital energy, known in traditional Chinese medicine as qi, flows, facilitating its healing power to flow through the body. Is there evidence that this is so? None, but let’s look at it more closely.
A vegetable with many properties
In reality, the onion is a very beneficial food, We have not denied that at any time. It is rich in water and potassium and low in sodium, making it a good diuretic, very beneficial for people with hypertension. It also contains compounds called polyphenols, with great power antioxidant. Its sulfur content is responsible for its bad smell, but also why it is beneficial for people with a tendency to form blood clots. It also contains vitamins B1, B2, B6, folic acid, niacin and vitamin C, and many minerals, such as phosphorus, iron or magnesium. If we add to all this its antimicrobial power, it becomes very clear that onion is a very complete food.
However, we must keep in mind that many of the superpowers associated with it are not entirely true. For example, with respect to its antimicrobial power, it is true that it has been proven that onion extracts can attack bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniaeo Bacillus cereus. Especially the extracts from your skin. But two details must be taken into account. The first, that these are bacteria, while colds, flu or COVID-19, which are respiratory diseases for which it is generally thought to be beneficial, cause them virus.
On the other hand, even if these were diseases caused by bacteria, applying a vegetable extract directly on a bacterial culture is not the same as putting the entire onion in your sock. You wouldn’t even get the same benefit from eating it, since the dose of those antimicrobial compounds are much lower in the whole onion.
Where does the myth of its healing power come from?
An interesting way to bring myths to light is to travel back in time to find their origin. In the case of the onion, in the sock or applied in another way, it all began in the Middle Ages and subsequent centuries. In fact, it seems that during the bubonic plague outbreaks Onions were placed around the houses, to prevent the disease from affecting the people who lived in them. At that time it was believed that diseases were caused by a type of gas clouds, called miasmas, which were breathed by healthy people. Although, more than by breathing them, it was believed that they contracted by smelling them. Therefore, it was thought that putting something as smelly as an onion around houses could counteract the smell of miasmas.
The fact of putting the onion in the sock comes from a belief in traditional Chinese medicine. Credit: Gabrielle Henderson (Unsplash)
Why does the onion get in the sock?
The decision to put the onion in the sock comes from the idea that 6 of the 12 meridians of traditional Chinese medicine They pass through the feet. Therefore, it is assumed that the beneficial effluvia of this vegetable can circulate through them and reach the different organs with which they are associated.
It is qi o chi, which supposedly flows through the meridians, is also the basis of other practices, such as reflexology or acupuncture. There is no scientific evidence of the existence of such channels. For this reason, there is no doubt that putting the onion in the sock will do any good.
Many defenders of this practice argue that, although there are no studies that support it, there are many testimonies. And it’s true. Above all, there are testimonials of people with respiratory infections, such as the flu, who were cured in this way. But there is something we must take into account. As with homeopathy, a flu treated with onion in the sock takes seven days to cure. Without any treatment, one week.
By: HIPERTEXTUAL