The Allium genus includes approximately 500 species. Commonly used allium vegetables include garlic, onion, leeks, chives, scallions which are used all over the world in different delicacies. Some allium vegetables have been employed for millenia in the traditional medical practice to treat cardiovascular diseases. They have been shown to have applications as antimicrobial, antithrombotic, anti...

The antisickling effects of the extracts of three vegetables highly consumed in Nigeria were investigated which included: Allium cepa (Onion), Allium sativum (Garlic) and Telferia occidentalis (Ugu). The extracts were partitioned into, the fat-soluble (FAS), the water-soluble (WAS), the butanol-soluble (BUS) and the crude aqueous extracts (CAEs) respectively. Free amino acid concentrations of t...

The use of natural antioxidants as mitigating agents has become prevalent. Garlic (Allium sativum) is one such agent which has been proven to have antibacterial, antiseptic, antifungal, antiparasitic, anticoagulant and antitumor properties. The present investigation deals with the ameliorative effects of Allium sativum on the antimalarial drug induced hepato-toxicity. Artesunate is being used a...

Allium L. (Alliaceae), a genus of major economic importance, exhibits a great diversity in various morphological characters and particularly in life form, with bulbs and rhizomes. Allium species show variation in several cytogenetic characters such as basic chromosome number, ploidy level, and genome size. The purpose of the present investigation was to study the evolution of nuclear DNA amount...

Antioxidant activity of fresh Allium sativum L. (garlic) is well known and is mainly due to unstable and irritating organosulphur compounds. Fresh garlic extracted over a prolonged period (up to 20 months) produces odourless aged garlic extract (AGE) containing stable and water soluble organosulphur compounds that prevent oxidative damage by scavenging free radicals. The aim of this study was t...

Epidemiologic studies show that the cardiovascular diseases are associated with multiple factors such as raised serum total cholesterol, increased LDL, increased platelet aggregation, hypertension and smoking. In-vitro studies have confirmed the ability of some plants of Allium species to reduce these parameters. Therefore, we evaluated anti-platelet aggregation effect of some Allium species (A...

As in many other crop species, also in Allium crops genetic erosion is taking place. In this mini review the current global state of the art is presented on Allium ex situ genetic resources and more in particular on onion genetic resources. Furthermore future possible actions are indicated to preserve the Allium genepool in a more effective way, amongst which a proposal to develop an Allium gen...