Onions for asthma?

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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.

See the article in its original context from April 1986.

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New Orleans - An ancient Egyptian scroll and a folk remedy used by Bavarian farmers has led a West German physician to conclude that onions may help reduce the severity of asthma attacks. "We assume that onions may be used in the treatment of human bronchial asthma. But we have not enough data," said Dr. Walter Dorsch, a researcher at the University of Munich.

However, Dr. Walter Dorsch, who presented his findings Wednesday to the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology, said it was too early to tell people that eating onions would make them healthy. Dorsch, in an interview, said there already are good treatments for asthma and that too many onions can give people indigestion and other stomach problems.

He said he became interested in onions because a scroll called the Ebers Papyrus mentions them as an ingredient in antiinflammatory preparations. He also said that in Germany dermatologists recommend onion treatments for bee stings and that Bavarian farmers "believe in onions as a remedy against cough during bronchitis." Dorsch conducted his reasearch on asthmatic guinea pigs and by checking the effect of an onion drink, made by soaking oinions in 10 per cent ethanol, on two women.