Guest guest Posted May 22, 2004 Report Share Posted May 22, 2004 Garlic is the Greatest LATIN NAME: Allium sativum FAMILY NAME: Alliaceae To say " garlic is the greatest " is no herbal hyperbole. This breathtaking bulb is one of the most versatile herbs around. It contains healthful chemicals and compounds galore, and it can be used to treat a remarkable variety of conditions and complaints. So it is with great confidence that I take some garlic almost every day and, coincidentally, why garlic is among America's best-selling herbs. garlic is best used for lowering blood pressure and lowering cholesterol, but since I am blessed with good ratings for both, I use garlic in the way that I use echinacea, as a booster for the immune system. I also think garlic, like milk thistle, can protect the liver. In fact, I'm thinking of seeking a trademark for a better beer nut: a garlic coated milk thistle seed. garlic can protect the liver from assorted toxins, including alcohol, and even heavy metals and pharmaceuticals like acetaminophen. Both garlic and onion have also been proven to increase the body's defense mechanisms against bacteria and viruses. I've always believed that if you eat enough garlic, your body is better prepared to combat germs--and people, including people with colds, will stay away from you. Although I've retired from my job as an ethnobotanist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I feel my real work has just begun, and I still do a lot of traveling in the interest of herbal medicine. In the course of these long, stressful trips, I'll meet hundreds of people, some most likely suffering from a cold or flu, so this is when I take echinacea and garlic most conscientiously (although I take my garlic capsules after social functions are behind me). Here's just one account of how I believe it helps. One recent spring day, I left my beautiful Green Farmacy Garden in Maryland and went west to Ohio State University, where I gave a lecture on herbal medicine to a house full of students. From Ohio, I headed to Seattle, where I presented a lecture sponsored by Nature's Herbs, at a regional meeting of the National Nutritional Foods Association. Later that same day, I boarded a red-eye flight to Miami, where I caught another night flight to Lima, Peru, where I had a full three hours sleep before the final leg to the ReNuPeRu Garden in Amazonian Peru. It's a display garden where eco-tourists can visit and learn about 200 local medicinal plants growing there. It was constructed by my friend and shaman, Antonio Montero Pisco, and funded by me. The garden, associated with the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research, is a wonderful place, just off a tributary of the Amazon and 2,300 miles upstream from the Atlantic Ocean. But when I arrived, the river's waters were higher than I had ever seen them, fully capable of flooding out village cesspools and country toilets. My herbal immunostimulants and antiseptics (echinacea and garlic) apparently protected me, while three of the eco-tourists attending my one-week medicinal plant workshop suffered bouts of dehydration or gastrointestinal infection. After more than two weeks away, I finally returned home. And thanks to a strong immune system and a good herbal regimen, I was in good health. I was happy to see the garlic coming up strong in my Green Farmacy Garden, where I grow it in a full one-quarter of the garden's 80 plots. garlic has an exceptionally long history as a medicinal plant, and for good reason. Here is my list for garlic: allergy, angina, asthma, bronchitis, burns and sunburn, cancer, cancer prevention, colds and flu, dermatitis, diabetes, earache, fungal infections, heart disease, herpes and cold sores, high blood pressure, HIV, leukemia and lymphoma, mastalgia (breast pain), sinusitis, ulcers, vaginitis, and yeast infections. What Garlic Is and What It Can Do Garlic is hardy and very easy to grow. Plants are tall and slim, and their leaves are long, flat, narrow, and graceful as they arise from the center of an underground cluster of cloves. These clusters are sometimes called heads of garlic, and they are encased in thin papery skins that can be white, gray, or mottled purple or rose. Mature plants can grow to be about four feet high, and their underground heads can be as large as an adult's fist. Garlic is traditionally planted in the fall by burying individual cloves two to three inches deep. When harvested next summer, each clove will have multiplied itself to form a whole head. With its strong flavor and pungent odor, garlic should be cut or crushed very finely and used in moderation for most purposes. If fried in oil that is too hot, garlic develops an acrid flavor. Garlic cloves are used fresh, dried, or powdered as a seasoning, rather than as a vegetable, although the tender, green parts of young garlic are widely eaten in China. There are two main forms of the culinary garlic plant. One, sometimes called serpent or rocambole garlic, produces a curved, snakelike stalk topped by a round globe of little flowers. The other type, the kind most widely grown commercially, does not produce this flower stalk. After thousands of years, taxonomists are still debating whether each constitutes a separate species or whether they are variations of the same species. HERB LORE AND MORE garlic is older than recorded history. It was there when the Egyptians built the pyramids. Remnants of garlic were found in Tutankhamen's tomb (he died in 1352 b.c.). Herodotus, the " father of history, " wrote that the laborers who built the pyramids were fed with radishes, onions, and garlic. And a manual from the time of the pyramids lists 22 medicines containing garlic. When the children of Israel were lost, hungry, and wandering in the wilderness of Sinai, they had alliums on their mind. " We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic, " they cried unto Moses in Numbers 11. The first written references to garlic were found in Sumerian documents dating to the third millennium b.c., and this wonderful plant has been in print ever since. Every civilization from Africa to China seems to have valued its essence and left a record of its powers. Hippocrates, the " father of medicine, " prescribed eating garlic as treatment for uterine tumors. The Bower Manuscript, dating about a.d. 450 in India, recommended garlic for abdominal tumors and as an aphrodisiac. The Birch Bark Manuscript, found in Central Asia and written in Old Sanskrit, calls garlic a panacea, a remedy for all diseases. This is not far from the truth. When I tabulate references to medicinal uses of garlic in folklore and old texts, I end up with a list of just about every condition you can think of. Sometimes I think it would be more challenging to find diseases that garlic was not used for. Garlic Goes Native When the first Paleolithic hunters followed their game across the Bering Strait out of Siberia and into the New World, they didn't find Allium sativum in North America. But these first immigrants brought with them genetic and mental recollections of many Russo/Sino/Tibetan foods and medicines they'd left behind. When they found allium plants here--there are about 150 native species--they recognized their value. By the time the Europeans arrived from the other direction, the first wave of immigrants had put about 30 species of allium to some good use. In his monumental 1998 book, Native American Ethnobotany, Daniel E. Moerman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, says that the primary medicinal uses of alliums were as cold remedies, as skin aids (often to prevent insect bites), and to ease breathing. My Amazonian shaman in Peru lists asthma, bronchitis, and tuberculosis first, not coincidentally. The leading species, used widely by the Cherokee, Navaho, and Thompson Indians, was Allium cernuum, or " nodding onion, " which today grows in southern Canada and throughout most of the United States. Research has tabulated a total of 78 uses, most as food, some as drug. Among the first plants to sprout in the beginning of the year, alliums were a welcome spring tonic for many tribes. Their leaves contain vitamin C, which would have helped fight off colds and scurvy. Early European settlers quickly learned to appreciate the ramp (Allium triccocum), also called the wild leek, and springtime ramp food festivals survive throughout the Appalachians to this day. All our wild alliums share many chemicals and biological activities with the more famous garlic. If I didn't have any cultivated garlic, I'd head outside and pick some wild garlic, Allium vineale. It's almost as rank as the ramp, but better than no garlic at all. Garlic Repels Vampire Bats? It was in Panama that I was inspired to start building my database of scientific information about the various substances in plants, because the natives there knew how to heal themselves with plants. I was very impressed and wanted to find the chemistry behind the folklore. One of the most helpful things the Panamanians taught me was to rub garlic on my feet to keep the vampire bats from biting me while I was sleeping. I'm tall and my toes would sometimes protrude through the mosquito netting over my hammock. Sometimes I wonder what came first: garlic to repel vampire bats, or garlic to fight off Transylvanian terrors, but it works--I've had no trouble with either. A Worldwide Wonder Garlic's vegetative homeland is Central Asia, but long ago its popularity spread to all parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa, where garlic has been grown for food, spice, and medicine for thousands of years. (None of the synthetic drugs have been with us for 200 years, much less 2,000.) I suspect that garlic was planted by the first farmers because its strong, complex flavor would have been a welcome addition to a bland, Neolithic diet. Early garlic lovers would soon have noted how the allium's antibiotic properties helped preserve food in a world without refrigerators. And if garlic helped preserve food, people soon figured out that it would help preserve them, too. As civilization advanced (if that is the correct term), garlic was sure to be part of any herbal or medicinal record, from Egypt to China. By 1843, a popular family health guide published by George Friedrich Most in Germany gave garlic remedies for ear- and toothache ( " put a fried garlic bulb on the upper arm; the skin will be reddened and thus the pain will be relieved through diversion " ), for herpes rashes, for nerve deafness, for whooping cough, to eliminate worms, to prevent infectious diseases, for coughs and stomach trouble, for mad dog bites and snake bites, and to grow hair. Today, third-world countries often rely on garlic as an expectorant in the treatment of tuberculosis, bronchial disorders, lupus, pulmonary gangrene, and inflammation of the trachea. garlic is widely known as " Russian penicillin, " because Russian physicians have long used it for respiratory disorders, giving children with whooping cough garlic ingredients via inhalation. Russians have also used garlic and onion preparations for flu, sore throats, and mouth sores. It never ceases to amaze me that there is almost always a chemical or suite of chemicals in a plant that explains why it is used for its popular indications. Few herbs have more folklore attached to them than garlic, and few herbs have more phytochemicals that can give reason to the folklore. All in all, the roster of garlic's biologically active compounds reads like a pharmacist's shelf--approximately 70 compounds have been identified so far. When I tabulated the effectiveness of garlic for my database, I found clinical proof, or scientific experiments using humans, that garlic is indeed effective for heart problems, especially for lowering high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and for thinning the blood, thereby lessening the likelihood of heart attack and stroke. I also found other good, strong evidence for garlic's activity as an antibiotic and for the treatment of burns, cancer prevention, strengthening the immune system, and respiratory problems. And I found less conclusive, but very suggestive, evidence that garlic is helpful for arthritis, intestinal disorders and parasites, lead poisoning, tuberculosis, typhus, and senile dementia. garlic is readily accepted in Europe as a phytomedicinal, and of all the herbs in Duke's Dozen, I think garlic and ginkgo have made the biggest dent in the fortress of the physicians. I would advise any serious student of garlic--and any medical doctor--to read garlic: The Science and Therapeutic Application of Allium sativum and Related Species, edited by Heinrich P. Koch, Ph.D., and Larry D. Lawson, Ph.D. A real landmark in the study of this marvelous herb, this book cites more than 2,000 references to scientific studies of garlic's medicinal effects. DR. DUKE'S NOTES Scientists in Bulgaria discovered that garlic given to afflicted lead mine workers considerably reduced their symptoms of poisoning. How Garlic Can Help With all its biologically active compounds, a little clove of garlic is really nature's magic silver-skinned bullet. Here are some of its best-known, best-substantiated applications: Altitude sickness. garlic's antiaggregant properties might help it alleviate the symptoms of altitude sickness, according to U.S. Navy researchers at Bethesda. I spent my 65th birthday at Machu Picchu, Peru's famous Inca ruin, elevation 8,000 feet. Getting there, we gasped for air at the Cuzco airport, 12,000 feet above sea level. When you go way above the clouds, your body has to adjust to a decreased oxygen supply. Fluids move from the blood to body tissues, and the result is thick blood and dehydration. So if you're planning to go mountain climbing, aggregate some of those antiaggregant veggies in a watery soup to prevent your blood from thickening up. The Bethesda scientists also suggested that thymol, an ingredient in thyme (and many of the wild mints that grow around Machu Picchu) might help mountain sickness, too, so flavor your soup with this herb. FROM MY SCIENCE NOTEBOOK Compared to other plants, garlic contains an unusually high concentration of sulfur. garlic is very rich in sulfur--containing more than three times the amount in apricots, broccoli, and onions, the foods with the next highest amounts. sulfur protects the garlic plant from invading fungi and bacteria as well as larger foes such as worms, nematodes, and other parasites. Above ground, garlic's strong flavor also protects it from animals that would eat its leaves. Even my voracious deer and groundhogs don't share my appetite for garlic. sulfur has long been recognized as an element that is useful in preventing or treating disease in the human body, too. It can be found in many modern medicines, including antibiotics, diuretics, and drugs that lower cholesterol and high blood pressure. A whole clove of fresh garlic doesn't smell like sulfur until it's cut or crushed, and an amino acid called alliin is exposed to oxygen. This activates an enzyme called alliinase, which acts on alliin to produce garlic's active ingredient, allicin, a thiosulfinate. Allicin gradually breaks down into other sulfur compounds, depending on the conditions around it. Arthritis. Arthritis is the name given to a number of different inflamed joint diseases from a number of different causes. Symptoms include swelling, pain, stiffness, and redness. garlic contains more than a dozen anti-inflammatory compounds, several pain-relieving compounds, plus a couple compounds that reduce swelling. As a gout sufferer (gout is one of the many kinds of arthritis), I was interested to read that the enzyme xanthine oxidase from the liver was inhibited by garlic. This enzyme is involved in chemical processes that lead to excess accumulations of uric acid, which cause terrible pain when deposited in joints. Cooked garlic was more effective at inhibiting this enzyme than fresh garlic juice, showing that something other than allicin is responsible, because allicin disappears after cooking. Athlete's foot. Fungi love warm, damp, cozy places like the insides of shoes. I go barefoot whenever I can, and this goes a long way to prevent athlete's foot and its itchy, peeling, and cracked skin. But garlic can help, too. My first choice of treatment is a footbath once or twice a day made by putting several crushed cloves in a basin of warm water and a little rubbing alcohol. Blood clots. garlic contains compounds that are classified as antiaggregants, because they are very effective in keeping blood platelets from sticking together and clotting. This ability could be very helpful if your arteries are plugged with fatty deposits, because these can cause the blood to clot as it flows over the irregular surfaces of the deposits. Clotting, as well as those fat deposits, could block the artery and cause a heart attack. When I researched the plants with the greatest variety of antiaggregant compounds, the result read like a spicy tofu salad. garlic was the champion with nine different antiaggregants; tomato, dill, and fennel each have seven; onion, hot pepper, and soybean have six; and celery, carrot, and parsley each have five. The more you add, the more you're protecting yourself from stroke, and the more likely you are to induce bleeding. Blood pressure. Hypertension is often associated with increased risk for heart attack. In studies, garlic has been shown to lower blood pressure. It appears that something other than allicin is responsible. It may be adenosine, which enlarges blood vessels. Or it may be something that inhibits an enzyme that increases blood pressure. Or it may be something that increases the production of nitric oxide, which is associated with lower blood pressure. Whatever it is, garlic has it. A CASE IN POINT Help for Athlete's Foot At a recent symposium, I was approached by a man who said he was successfully controlling his toenail fungus with three different herbs, ranking them from most to least effective as walnut, garlic, and tea tree oil. Toenail fungus (onychomycosis) very frequently begins as athlete's foot, which then invades a toenail. Athlete's foot is fairly easy to control, but nail fungus is not easily controlled by anything. Most doctors are failing with the medical treatment of toenail fungus. The man said his first line of defense was a footbath prepared with whole green walnut husks. For him, that was more successful than his independent trials of garlic footbaths and tea tree oil baths. All three of these are antifungals, but the one that's best for him may not be the one that's best for me, or the one that's best for you. Each of us is chemically different. So if I were to develop a problem with athlete's foot, I'd try all three, alone or maybe mixed together. I'd rather smell like tea tree than garlic. Here's my garlic footbath remedy: Dice or crush 10 garlic cloves into a wash basin of warm water with a little lemon juice. Soak your feet for about 15 minutes, then dry them carefully. Don't do this before a social engagement, however--garlic's odiferous compounds can enter your body through the skin and exit through your mouth a little while later. You'll be able to taste them. Cancer. Cancer is a group of diseases in which symptoms are due to unrestrained growth of cells, or malignant tumors, in body organs or tissues. Cancer begins when the genes controlling cell growth and multiplication are transformed by carcinogens. Once a cell is transformed into a tumor-forming type, it passes its change onto all offspring cells. A number of recent epidemiological studies looked at cancer in relation to garlic consumption, and the results were very significant. In almost every study, eating garlic was linked to a reduced risk of cancer, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. Researchers suspect that garlic's allicin inhibits the formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines in the stomach. In the very important five-year " Iowa Women's Health Study, " published in 1994, researchers reported that garlic was the only food of 127 studied that showed a statistically significant association with a decreased risk of colon cancer. And all it took was one or more servings a week. I have said in many lectures that if I were diagnosed with cancer, I'd probably go with herbal remedies instead of chemotherapy, and garlic would be one of the things that I would be taking. By taking garlic in combination with echinacea and turmeric for boosting the immune system, I'd have an herbal shotgun of phytochemicals, dozens of them, that would be attacking the cancer on different fronts. Too often the chemotherapy weakens the patient more than it weakens the cancer, but when you go with the herbals, you're strengthening the patient and often weakening the cancer. That is the natural approach. Usually it's the sulfur-containing compounds that have anticancer activity, and garlic has more of these than any other herb I can think of. Also, garlic contains the important trace element selenium at higher levels than found in most fruits and vegetables with the exception of cauliflower, spinach, mushrooms, and grains, where it is found at about the same levels, and asparagus, where it is three times as abundant. Selenium promotes antioxidant activity, which protects against cancer. garlic also contains substances that inhibit tumor activity. In experiments with mice, garlic extracts were shown to have an inhibitory effect on cancer cells. DR. DUKE'S NOTES Help for Athlete's Foot Surgeons in France and China have used the skin of garlic bulbs to help repair ruptured ear drums by covering the injured area with a layer of garlic cells to assist the healing process. Candidiasis. Infection by the fungus Candida albicans can upset the natural balance of microorganisms within the vagina, or less commonly on other areas of mucous membrane such as the mouth or on moist skin. The fungus occurs naturally in these moist areas and is usually kept under control by beneficial bacteria. Allowed to grow unchecked, however, the fungus infection can cause a thick, white discharge from the vagina with itching or painful urination. I think garlic is one of the best herbs going for candidiasis. Study after study has shown the fungicidal effect of allicin on Candida albicans. In 1986, one research team found that garlic curtailed the fungus's ability to take up oxygen and inhibited its biosynthesis of protein and lipids. These effects show up in the blood soon after eating fresh garlic. garlic also helps prevent an outbreak of candidiasis by boosting an impaired immune system to help fight it off. Colds and flu. Sniffling, sneezing, coughing--we all know the symptoms of colds and flu. These viral infections cause inflammation and congestion of the nose and throat. As anyone who has ever had garlic breath knows, the herb's aromatic compounds are readily released from the lungs and respiratory tract, putting garlic's active ingredients right where they can be most effective against cold and flu viruses. garlic is also an expectorant and will help your body clear up congestion. garlic works before the fact and after the fact--it is both germicidal and immune boosting. A Japanese study showed that garlic best protected mice from an influenza virus if they were fed a garlic extract for 15 days before infection. So I take it more as a preventive, but I would also take it if I were down with the flu. It certainly is going to work better than a synthetic antibiotic, which is wasted if you have a viral cold. DR. DUKE'S NOTES Today, fields of garlic are grown commercially in many countries, notably China, the United States, Mexico, Egypt, and India, and across Europe. Here in the United States, much of the garlic we eat is grown around Gilroy, California. This little town 89 miles south of San Francisco calls itself the " Garlic Capital of the World " and each July stages the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival to celebrate the flavor and virtues of the " stinking rose. " Heart health. Many people tell me how they have brought their cholesterol down and cleaned out their arteries with garlic, and it's true--what garlic can do for heart health is quite overwhelming. It contains at least five biologically active compounds that have been shown to help lower blood pressure, more than a dozen that lower cholesterol, and about a dozen that help reduce the risk of stroke and blood clots. You've probably heard about " good, " or high-density lipoprotein (HDL), cholesterol, and " bad, " or low-density lipoprotein (LDL), cholesterol. Too much of the wrong kind of cholesterol can result in impaired blood supply due to blockage or narrowing of vessels by fat deposits. http://www.mothernature.com/Library/bookshelf/Books/54/7.cfm _________________ _________________ JoAnn Guest mrsjoguest DietaryTipsForHBP http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest The complete " Whole Body " Health line consists of the " AIM GARDEN TRIO " Ask About Health Professional Support Series: AIM Barleygreen " Wisdom of the Past, Food of the Future " http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/AIM.html PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER We have made every effort to ensure that the information included in these pages is accurate. However, we make no guarantees nor can we assume any responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, product, or process discussed. 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