He guys!
Have you heard of this before? (sorry if I am second) Apparently feeding rats onion juice increases their Testosterone by about 300%. Sounds like an April fools joke to me, but it seems to be legit.
Read for info:
Please also read the abstract of the study (or the study as a whole), because the both state different amounts of onions. So it is not really clear to me how much is needed for a possible effect in humans.
Read for more info:
Let the farting begin?
Onions are extremely good for you. I am not sure about that much of a test boost, but everyone should aim to make them a staple in their diet (breakfast in your eggs, lunch in your sandwich, dinner on top of your steak). There are plenty of different kinds also, so it’s hard to get bored of 'em.
if they did give bad breath id eat tons of them
Intersting… what method did they use to determine the testosterone change? We’ll need this data for when Bill Roberts joins the discussion…
Very interesting study, but I’m not sure how this would equate to a human because I know nothing of rat metabolism (other than they metabolize certain drugs faster) and or their antioxidant system (and any affect it would have on spermatogenesis), and if this result would even translate to humans
of note:
Also, even though they used fresh onion juice, I’m pretty sure quercetin at least is more bioavailable in sauteed onions from what I recall.
PS that site has tons of cool links! Thanks for sharing!
Awesome, now I have an excuse to gorge on Souvlaki
There are I think more substances that work (provide some specific result) in rats but not in man than there are substances that work well in both. Which is not to say that every now and then something that works in a rat won’t also work well in man. It might.
On the onion juice, I don’t know.
I was thinking about it, and anecdotally, I tend to think this may be one of the substances that works in rats well, but not in humans. I mean, if I already eat half an onion everyday does that mean my test levels should be through the roof? If a simple food like this was correlated to T so drastically, don’t you think researchers would have been on to this a long time ago? Just saying. For hard training athletes, short term dose of 3mg/kg/day zinc on the other hand…
“Zinc megadose gives 40 percent more free testosterone” and… “The same effect was also seen on the concentrations of thyroxine and free T3 and T4 in the blood.” just picked some zinc 50 at GNC. Don’t take more than 100mg at a time though… I’m gonna take 50mg 5X daily for the next two weeks.
[quote]BulletproofTiger wrote:
I was thinking about it, and anecdotally, I tend to think this may be one of the substances that works in rats well, but not in humans. I mean, if I already eat half an onion everyday does that mean my test levels should be through the roof? If a simple food like this was correlated to T so drastically, don’t you think researchers would have been on to this a long time ago? Just saying. For hard training athletes, short term dose of 3mg/kg/day zinc on the other hand…
“Zinc megadose gives 40 percent more free testosterone” and… “The same effect was also seen on the concentrations of thyroxine and free T3 and T4 in the blood.” just picked some zinc 50 at GNC. Don’t take more than 100mg at a time though… I’m gonna take 50mg 5X daily for the next two weeks.
http://www.ergo-log.com/zinctest.html[/quote]
I’m a big fan of experimenting with Vitamins and Minerals upon yourself, but that seems like a outrageous amount of zinc in a day. 250 mg in a day wtf? Based on my knowledge zinc beyond 100 mg is pretty detrimental to health or Ideal Health which I strive for. I take 50mg x 2 daily cycled with copper. That’s crazy man…Interested in seeing what kind of results or effects you notice.
Since the zinc content of the body is about 3 grams total, if a deficient state occurred this could not be promptly corrected with, for example, 100 mg/day dosing.
However if using higher dosing to catch up, it is guesswork and as personal opinion I think it would be better to be conservative.
Looking at BT’s figures: Let’s say that of his 250 mg, 50 mg represents his maintenance. Now I don’t remember bioavailability of chelated zincs but I think (not positive) it’s below 50%. So he might be catching up his stores at a rate or 100 mg/day, but probably less.
So two weeks might well be longer than needed to catch up – could well be twice as long as needed – as deficiency is not a matter of having only half of what one should in the body or anything as severe as that.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Since the zinc content of the body is about 3 grams total, if a deficient state occurred this could not be promptly corrected with, for example, 100 mg/day dosing.
However if using higher dosing to catch up, it is guesswork and as personal opinion I think it would be better to be conservative.
Looking at BT’s figures: Let’s say that of his 250 mg, 50 mg represents his maintenance. Now I don’t remember bioavailability of chelated zincs but I think (not positive) it’s below 50%. So he might be catching up his stores at a rate or 100 mg/day, but probably less.
So two weeks might well be longer than needed to catch up – could well be twice as long as needed – as deficiency is not a matter of having only half of what one should in the body or anything as severe as that.[/quote]
Thanks for the advice/calculation/putting things into perspective. While I am aware of the very high dose I mentioned I would be taking, I felt it necessary/reasonable due to the training volume I’ve been experiencing lately (which has certainly resulted in lowered zinc status) and the short duration of the dosing. Perhaps though based on your advice Bill, only 100 mg/day (plus that in the minimal amount of food I’m taking in) will be the dose I choose though, and then I can have values tested a few weeks after I return to maintenance dose (and lower training volume) to determine if it did the trick. A blood test would be best at this point, but that’s something you have to schedule, and I don’t have time this week or next, and my training volume is only going to increase in the next two weeks, which will worsen my levels and hormones. The results of a test if it were taken (due to my training volume) would certainly come back low, from what I’ve realized 15mg in a standard multi and even an add’l 15mg in the zine supplement I was taking EOD may not be enough for maintenance due to my training volume and low food volume as of late.
Again I appreciate you guys putting things into perspective, and I’ll procede a little more cautiously from here.
BT
I take 50mg of zinc and 300mg magnesium before bedtime everynight. I think with all the fruit and veggies I eat plus 2 servings of super greens+ (not Superfood) but pretty much the same thing 6-10 veggie servings I think I get enough zinc. I’ve heard a lot of athletes have a zinc deficiency.
So who wants to try this with me? 100g of onion juice a day for a month!
[quote]rasturai wrote:
I take 50mg of zinc and 300mg magnesium before bedtime everynight. I think with all the fruit and veggies I eat plus 2 servings of super greens+ (not Superfood) but pretty much the same thing 6-10 veggie servings I think I get enough zinc. I’ve heard a lot of athletes have a zinc deficiency.[/quote]
Yeah especially when training intensity is high for prolonged periods. I think zinc in particular is definitely something that needs to be suited according to training intensity. Perhaps many of the minerals are at suboptimal (deficiency) levels when training is particularly hard or diet sucks. I’m definitely interested in getting my levels (of vitamins, minerals, and hormones) checked a little more regularly from this point forward so I can determine the levels necessary to avoid deficiency (and maintain/attain optimal levels) during periods of various training intensities.
[quote]Mouldsie wrote:
So who wants to try this with me? 100g of onion juice a day for a month![/quote]
I might aswell say “Bye Bye” to my sex life…but in all seriousness the study sounds interesting.
[quote]Mouldsie wrote:
So who wants to try this with me? 100g of onion juice a day for a month![/quote]
Worth a shot.
Worst that can happen is you’ll walk around smelling like White Castle and shitting your pants.
This is pretty interesting thanks for posting, I will be adding much more onions into my diet! 
The site that the source info came from is very interesting.
The thought of onions make me sick let alone drinking it as a juice! I’m willing to give this ago though just to see for myself in a months time what kind of noticeable effects happen. Do I literally just take an onion and blend it to make the juice? I could see some very unwanted digesting issues…any thoughts?