- TikTokers are utilizing onions as a holistic well being catch-all, from onion water for the flu to chop onions as air purifiers.
- Specialists say consuming onions might decrease the severity of viral infections however will not stop them.
- A examine discovered that 20% of TikToks include misinformation, and well being misinformation is comparatively frequent.
“What do you do with onions?” @Poshmamma, TikTok’s self-described “onion lady,” requested viewers on October 23.”You narrow them up and sit them round your home — they may purify the air and pull the toxins, micro organism, fungus, and viruses out of the air. They’re very highly effective to maintain your home sick-free.”
“If different persons are getting sick in your home,” she continued, “run to the grocery retailer and get the crimson onions” to “draw within the illness and draw within the poison.”
Quickly after posting her onion recommendation, @Poshmamma’s account went non-public, however you possibly can nonetheless view clips of the original video — which garnered more than 2.5 million views — in duets.
A slew of different TikTokers, together with @Plants4life, @beautyofnaychure, and @jacqleengrace, have additionally sung the praises of onion remedy.
Nicole Napell (@americanmama4boys) instructed viewers in a November 7 TikTok that she’d positioned a lower onion under her four-year-old kid’s mattress. “He is by no means slept by way of the evening,” she mentioned, “and he slept all through the evening final evening.” Napell instructed viewers she was making onion water that day and inspired them to observe @Poshmamma, who’d gone viral for a November 7 video on onions as a pure sedative.
Specialists mentioned consuming onion water possible will not harm, however leaving them out might trigger them to mildew
As a lot as wellness TikTokers appear to swear by the eye-watering vegetable, well being specialists are skeptical that there is truly any well being profit to placing it round your property.
Dana Ellis Hunnes, a senior medical dietitian and professor on the College of California Los Angeles and creator of “Recipe for Survival,” mentioned there isn’t a proof a lower onion round the home can clear the air of poisons, micro organism, fungi, or viruses.
Although some plants can cleanse the air of sure particulates like benzene and formaldehyde, Hunnes doesn’t know of any vegetable that forestalls illness from spreading by way of the air.
Plus, leaving lower greens across the house for too lengthy could cause them to mildew, which might set off an allergic response.
However Hunnes mentioned proof does point out a compound inside onions can inhibit the expansion and replication of viruses inside the physique. Slowing down how shortly a virus replicates permits the immune system to higher push back an infection.
“Consuming onions would possibly barely decrease the severity of the viral an infection, however it in all probability will not stop it,” Hunnes mentioned. “There’s completely no disadvantage to consuming onions whereas sick, except you’re allergic.”
Maddy Lewis, an epidemiologist and host of the podcast Epicentral, mentioned the follow of utilizing onions to push back illness could have originated through the Bubonic plague when docs would use a number of herbs, vegetation, and flowers to filter “unhealthy air” regarded as inflicting illness. Lewis mentioned the onion development could have recirculated through the 1918 flu pandemic, as natural treatments usually change into extra common throughout pandemics.
Hunnes and Lewis mentioned to stay to the tried and true strategies to guard in opposition to RSV and different infections: put on a masks, keep house in the event you’re sick, and repeatedly wash your fingers.
Well being misinformation is comparatively simple to search out on TikTok
Throughout the child system scarcity, house treatments that pediatricians called “dangerous” circulated on social media. When the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe vs. Wade, abortive natural treatments trended. Generally, #healthhacks with inadequate scientific help and potential for hurt — like ingesting sea moss or doing a salt-water flush or parasite cleanse — change into common on the app.
Any such misinformation might be particularly regarding on TikTok. It is one of many fastest-growing platforms, and, based on Sensor Tower, it has been the most-downloaded app within the US every quarter since Q1 2021. In line with a September 2022 examine by misinformation tracker NewsGuard, about 1 in 5 TikToks contain misinformation. (The study discovered that Google offered “higher-quality and less-polarizing outcomes, with far much less misinformation.”) In it, researchers famous that TikTok additionally tended to recommend extra biased phrases reminiscent of “covid vaccine truths” or “covid vaccine hiv” when the time period “covid vaccine” was searched.
Lewis mentioned persons are particularly weak to misinformation throughout pandemics and instances of social unrest. She mentioned to be cautious of exaggerated claims promising a “treatment” to illness, and when doubtful, ask your native well being division.
“TikTok actually blew up across the onset of the pandemic, and I believe persons are form of greedy at something to make them really feel like they’ve energy over their well being and security,” she added.
