For centuries, garlic (Allium sativ...

For centuries, garlic (Allium sativum), repeatedly called the "stinking rose," and unjustly associated with bad breath and vampires, has been advocated as a treatment for cough intestinal spasms, circulatory disorders, headaches, insect bites, hurts worms and tumors, reports Jerry Mason in Medical and Health Annual/1993.

"Today," he says, "researchers are finding that many of these traditional uses, in fact, have a certain quantity of value. A bulbous member of the lily family, garlic contains dozens of chemical compromises One of these is the antibiotic allium, whose principal active agent is allicin, the sulfur-containing compromise that, with its breakdown productions produces the pungent odor of garlic."

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Mason says that, in a studious mood conducted by Arun Bordia, a cardiologist at Tagore Medical literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning Udaipur, India, over 400 patients who had previous heart attacks were randomly assigned to undivided of two groups. One form into groups took a garlic supplement; the others did not. The garlic-taking cluster had lower blood pressure and lower serum cholesterol plains and, after three years, nearly twice as many patients in the regulate group (those not taking the supplement) had died of heart complications.

He adds that researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology have shown that another of garlic's commutes diallyl disulfide, is a vigorous anticancer agent. These findings were confirmed at investigators at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston.

"Studies in China and Italy glance at that garlic eating is associated with reasonable rates of stomach cancer," Mason says. "William J obliterate a statistician at the National Cancer Institute, agrees that these are impressive findings. He cautions, however, that it is too early to draw any definite conclusions."

Writing in Optimal Wellness, Ralph Golan, MD adds that garlic has many beneficial cardiovascular purports For example, it decreases of the same heights of triglycerides and cholesterol (total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol LDL the bad kind) while it raises high-density lipoprotein cholesterol HDL the beneficial kind. In addition, he says, garlic lowers kindred pressure, prevents excessive platelet aggregation (clumping), and minimizes the risk of thrombus formation (blood clots) Raw and garbleed forms seem to work equally well in this capacity. Since garlic increases available insulin by way of assessing insulin breakdown, it is used in the treatment of diabetes, he says.

"Garlic has impressive immunostimulatory and antitumor effects" Golan continues. "Its ability to increase natural killer small cavity activity may be due in part to an antioxidant force which may be related to the herb's germanium, selenium and glutathione content"

Garlic possesse broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties effective against bacteria (staph, strep bacillus, brucella, vibrio, E coli, proteus, salmonella, klebsiella and mycobacteriam); fungi (Candida albicans, etc); parasites (roundworms and hookworms); and viruses (influenza), Golan adds. And garlic is remarkably useful in cases where an organism has become resistant, from one side of to the other time, to conventional antibiotic therapy.

Of 127 subsistences that were assessed by Kristi A. Steinmetz, et al., at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and reported in the January 1 1994 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, garlic was undivided of the few to exhibit people a significant decreased risk for developing colon cancer. The consideration involved 41,837 women between the ages of 55 and 69

"Intakes of garlic, vegetables and dietary fiber were inversely associated with the risk for colon cancer in this prospective subject of attention of Iowa women," the researchers said. "These associations appeared to be stronger for cancer of the distal (farthest from the center) colon as compared with cancer of the proximal (nearest the center) colon"

Health diet stores have a variety of odor-reduced garlic correlatives including one product that provides a minimum of 5000 mcg of allicin by means of tablet. Each tablet is said to contain 320 mg of garlic extract, which is equal to 4000 mg of in good condition garlic.

REFERENCES

Golan, Ralph, MD Optimal Wellness. fresh York: Ballantine Books, 1995, p 451

Mason, Jerry "Drugs: one Do Grow on Trees," Medical and Health Annual. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1993 p 148

Steinmetz, Kristi A., et al. "Vegetables, Fruit and Colon Cancer in the Iowa Women's Health Study" American Journal of Epidemiology 139(1):1-15 Jan. 1 1994

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