• Modern Medicine Snubs Garlic’s Allicin While It Continues To Astound In Human Studies

    Posted April 5, 2017: by Bill Sardi

    The active principal in garlic, allicin, is being put to the test in human research studies and it is producing health benefits unparalleled by any prescription drug.

    Is any drug known that simultaneously reduces the risk for cardiovascular disease by 64%, high blood pressure by 26% and chronic kidney disease by 32%?  A recently published study says habitual consumption of fresh uncooked garlic does.  The remarkable report documenting this attracts no news headlines.  [Journal Hypertension March 17, 2017]

    Instead of the National Institutes of Health calling an urgent scientific conference on how to adopt garlic technology into health regimens, the NIH’s major health initiative now is how to apply known ineffective therapies in a more precise fashion. [NIH.gov]

    Millions of American go on mindlessly taking problematic or ineffective aspirin tablets and statin drugs while government and health authorities continue to debate how to deliver more ineffective care to more and more people.

    As you will learn below, fresh-crushed garlic (but not cooked garlic) has been shown to profoundly lower blood pressure while blood-pressure lowering drugs taken simultaneously with garlic were marginally effective but posed serious side effect problems.

    Remarkably, while combinations of blood-pressure lowering drugs can induce excessively low blood pressure with resultant dizziness, falls, confusion and blurry vision, garlic selectively lowers blood pressure only among those individuals who are hypertensive.

    In another study, garlic (allicin) was shown to non-toxically and selectively induce the death of cancer cells by a unique mechanism that reduces glutathione (glu-ta-thy-on), a major internal antioxidant, while having no toxic effects upon healthy cells.  That is something that cannot be said about toxic anti-cancer drugs.

    FRESH GARLIC (ALLICIN) LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE BY -12.0/-4.0 POINTS AMONG PATIENTS ALREADY TAKING TWO BLOOD PRESSURE PILLS

    Given that medical therapy with standard blood pressure medications is often not effective and fraught with side effects (chronic cough and zinc depletion with ACE inhibitors and fatigue and breathing problems with beta blockers), patients with severe coronary artery disease who were taking five medications (statins, aspirin, blood thinner, and two blood-pressure lowering drugs – beta blocker and ACE inhibitors) were given 400 milligrams of garlic powder twice a day (800 mg total/day). [Red Crescent Medicine Nov 2016]

    Despite already taking medications, garlic demonstrably lowered systolic/diastolic blood pressure by -12.0/-4.0 points.  Of interest, garlic did not significantly reduce a rise in blood pressure among subjects who did not have high blood pressure (hypertension – defined as 140/90 or higher without medication).  Unlike drugs that can lower blood pressure too far (hypotension), garlic selectively reduced blood pressure only in the subjects whose pressure was too high.

    Chronic kidney disease is a common origin of elevated blood pressure.  In laboratory animals where chronic kidney disease was induced, garlic drove down the elevated blood pressure from ~180 to ~145 (systolic pressure) after six weeks of use.  Garlic also dramatically increased the production of internal antioxidant defenses in the body. [Oxidative Medicine & Cellular Longevity 2016]

    While garlic consumption in foods is well documented to reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease [Journal Hypertension March 17, 2017], it cannot be presumed that adding garlic to spice up foods will accomplish the same results.  There is now recognition that the health restoring properties of garlic are retained in fresh-crushed uncooked garlic.  Heat destroys the active properties (allicin) in garlic. [Nutrition & Cancer 2016]  Boiling garlic even reduces garlic’s ability to prevent blood platelets from clumping. [Prostaglandins Leukotrienes Essential Fatty Acids 1999]

    HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE GROUP

    START

    3 MONTHS

    DIFFERENCE

    SYSTOLIC BLOOD PRESSURE 1ST BP NUMBER

    GARLIC 400 mg/twice a day

    135.7

    123.5

    -12.1

    PLACEBO

    126.4

    129.0

    + 2.6

    DIASTOLIC BLOOD PRESSURE2nd BP NUMBER

     GARLIC 400 mg/twice a day

    85.4

    81.4

    – 4.0

    PLACEBO

     80.4

     81.8

    +1.3

    Note: Almost all subjects were taking statin, aspirin, blood thinner (Plavix), beta blocker and ACE inhibitor

    Does garlic drive a stake through the heart of cancer?

    Playing on the idea that garlic wards off vampires, Alex de Giorgio and Justin Stebbing, two oncologists at Imperial College in London, write about consistent reports that garlic quells cancer in a report entitled “Driving A Stake Through The Heart Of Cancer published in Lancet Oncology.

    Drs. DiGiorgio and Stebbing say there are waves of dietary information and misinformation “that wash over us.”  But, they ask, “can a solitary vegetable like garlic really produce dramatic health benefits?…. it might be difficult to “shift pre-existing internal gut bacteria …with one dietary tweak.”  They refer to garlic’s ability to favorably alter gut bacteria that now appears to be at the root of so many human maladies.  Remarkably, garlic kills off undesirable bacteria in the gut while the more desirable lactobacilli exhibit a greater resistance to garlic. [Phytomedicine Jun3 15, 2012]

    Drs. de Giorgio and Stebbing note that large studies indicate garlic users have vastly lower rates of cancer, in the range of 60-70% less.  But life-long use of garlic is one thing, use of it therapeutically during cancer treatment is another.

    Even more compelling evidence for garlic playing a role in cancer therapy was published last year showing garlic has at least 12 molecules that dock up with breast cancer targets.  Pharmacologists want to isolate these molecules and turn each one into a drug.  [Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2016]

    Garlic exhibits a unique non-toxic action to killing cancer cells by depleting glutathione (glu-ta-thy-on), a major internal antioxidant, selectively from cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. [Antioxidants Dec 2016]

    In one study fresh-crushed garlic killed 80-90% of breast, prostate and liver cancer cells and 40-55% of colon cancer cells in a lab dish at very low-dose concentrations. [Journal Medicinal Food July 2016]

    Many women are offered tamoxifen, a drug that blocks the estrogen receptor on breast cells, but few women opt to take tamoxifen over concerns of side effects.  By comparison, a breakdown molecule of allicin, allitridin (diallyl trisulfide), actively blocks the estrogen receptor at a low-dose. [Breast Cancer Research Treatment Feb 2014]

    Towards therapy rather than daily prevention oncologists de Giorgio and Stebbing say: “Any benefits gained from garlic are likely to be lessened once they are heavily cooked.”

    Indeed, fresh garlic exposed to heat negates its cancer-cell killing effect. [Nutrition & Cancer July 2016]

    They end their report by saying garlic “would be a boom to the health food industry if it were not for the caveat that garlic is most beneficial eaten raw.”  [Lancet Oncology July 2016]

    Sadly, they are unaware of an alkaline-buffered garlic capsule (Garlinex) that negates the destructive action of stomach acid on the enzyme alliinase so that the primary active ingredient in garlic, allicin, is reliably produced.

    So who is beating the drum for garlic?

    © Bill Sardi, 2017

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