Recipe For Anti-Cancer Garlic Requires A Chef With A Slow Hand

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Recipe For Anti-Cancer Garlic Requires A Chef With A " Slow Hand "

JoAnn Guest

Oct 28, 2006 09:40 PDT

 

 

http://www.sciencea gogo.com/ news/19981016030 553data_trunc_

sys.shtml

 

Researchers have shown that microwave heating, or roasting garlic,

can diminish or destroy its anti-cancer activity - unless the herb

is chopped or crushed, and allowed to stand for at least 10 minutes

before cooking.

Kun Song and Dr. John A. Milner, from the Department of Nutrition at

Penn State University, conducted the study. The research was the

first to show that as little as one minute of microwaving or 45

minutes of oven roasting can completely block garlic's ability to

retard the action of a known cancer-causing agent in rats.

 

Garlic's anti-cancer activity

was retained, however, if the herb was first chopped or crushed and

allowed to stand for 10 minutes before being heated.

 

Song said that the 10-minute " standing period " after chopping or

crushing the garlic enables an enzyme naturally present in certain

garlic cells to come in contact with, and act on, chemicals in other

cells.

 

Chopping or crushing the garlic opens the cells and enables the

enzyme to start a reaction that produces chemicals called allyl

sulfur compounds that possess anti-cancer properties.

 

" The allyl sulfur compounds produced from the enzyme's reaction are

critical to garlic's anti-cancer effects, " Song noted. " If garlic

was heated or roasted immediately after crushing, the enzyme was

de-activated by the heating process and garlic's anti-cancer effects

were blocked. "

 

Song and Milner conducted the study with rats given garlic by

intubation six times over a two-week period. The rats received

garlic equal to 2 per cent of their daily food ration. After the feeding period

was over, the rats were treated with a breast tumor inducer called DMBA.

DNA from the rats' breast tissue then was examined in order to count the number

of instances in which DMBA reaction products or metabolites had become attached

to the DNA. The number of DMBA metabolites binding to DNA, called DNA adducts,

was used as the measure of cancer incidence.

 

Rats that received no garlic had the highest number of adducts. Rats

given raw garlic showed an average decrease of 64 per cent in adduct

formation compared with rats that had received no garlic.

Rats given

garlic that had been heated for one minute in the microwave oven or

roasted in a convention oven for 45 minutes after being crushed and

allowed to " stand " for 10 minutes showed 41 per cent and 21 per cent

reductions in adduct formation, respectively. Rats given heated or

roasted garlic that had not been allowed to stand showed no decrease

in adducts compared with non-garlic fed rats.

____________ _____

 

Garlic, nature's underground pharmacy!

JoAnn Guest

Jun 28, 2004 15:09 PDT

 

A Primer on the Chemistry of Garlic

 

http://www.gourmetg arlicgardens. com/chemstry. htm

 

Before we get into the chemistry of garlic, I would like to say that

I am not a chemist; neither am I a botanist, biologist nor medical

doctor. But I can read and I do love garlic enough to read

everything about it I can get my hands on. I am merely trying to

pass on to you the results of what I have read in order to help

stimulate enough of an interest in you to study further. If you find

disagreement with the contents of this section, please leave us your

comments so that we can take them into consideration, as we plan to

continuously update this section with the latest information as it

becomes available to us. We would not knowingly or intentionally

misinform anyone.

 

Where possible, we will cite the specific source

of our information and urge you to read the section on the health

benefits of garlic so you can see where we get the information we

pass on to you in this section. If you have copies of scientific

papers that we do not, please either forward them to us or tell us

where we may obtain copies so that we can update our data base.

 

We realize we are in the middle of a controversial subject here and

wish to pass on as much information as possible so our readers can

make intelligent choices based on having the maximum amount of

information.

 

The Chemistry of garlic is an incomplete science. We are just

beginning to appreciate the complexity of chemical reactions that

take place inside the cloves themselves and what happens when it is

crushed, cooked or otherwise processed in some way. The more we

discover about it, the more we find that we don't yet understand and

may not within our lifetimes.

 

Even the tiniest clove contains the

potential for an almost unlimited number of compounds that can be

generated by interacting with it in a number of ways.

We will not be using chemical formulae and graphic illustrations of

chemical

structures as most people don't understand them anyway, but we try

to keep our discussion at the lay person's level so that

understanding is maximized.

 

It is not our purpose to bedazzle anyone with complicated jargon in

order to make ourselves look smart, our goal is to help people

better understand what is happening in the

simplest way possible.

 

Garlic is deceptively simple at first glance, basically containing

only two compounds separated by cellular walls within the clove. But

when you add the fact that garlic is a living thing that complies

with its own rules for survival rather than just inert matter,

things begin to get complicated. Nothing in nature is truly inert,

not even rocks.

 

If you look deep enough into rocks you will see that there is atomic

and molecular activity going on constantly. Atoms continuously lose

and gain electrons in their outer shells and when bombarded with

heat, light or other radiation, their matter gradually sort of

evaporates into the surrounding space or bonds with other materials.

 

From the moment a garlic bulb matures and its leaves die down,

chemical changes are constant as each clove within the bulb begins

the slow cycle to become a multi-cloved bulb itself. In a few months

or so, depending on variety, each clove will send up its first

little spike of a leaf in search of sunlight and generate roots that

reach out and down seeking nutrient-laden water that it can osmose

into itself and use the energy within the clove or sunlight to

convert into new life. That very action itself would seem to imply

some sort of intelligent plan, complete with systematic

alternatives, that it follows, apparently knowingly-but that is an

entirely different subject that we will not go into. We will attempt

to look only at the chemical changes without trying to examine any

subtle reasons why garlic does what it does.

 

If you slice open a clove of garlic, you will see that it is

composed of cells separated by cellulose walls. Thanks to research

conducted in 1951 by two Swiss chemists, Dr. Arthur Stoll and Dr.

Ewald Seebeck, we know these cells contain either a cysteine-based

sulfur rich amino acid, called alliin, which is stored in the

mesophyll cells that make up most of the clove, or a protein-based

enzyme called allinase, that is stored only in the vascular bundle

sheaths that run vertically up through the cloves, which reacts

spontaneously with Alliin on contact, hence the need to be kept

apart by the cellular walls.

 

The clove had little or no discernible smell until you sliced it

allowing these two compounds to mix and

form a sulfenic acid which almost spontaneously condenses down to

form thiosulphinates, mostly allicin. Among researchers, there are

several other complicated chemical names for allicin. It is the

allicin that is thus formed by chemical action that has the familiar

garlic smell.

 

When garlic is first sliced, diced, cubed or crushed, the amount of

allicin increases with time as the alliin is converted into allicin,

releasing pyruvic acid (the stuff that gives onions their pungency)

and ammonmia, resulting in the typical garlic aroma.

 

As allicin sets after crushing, it reacts with itself and converts

to

diallyl

disulfide, mostly, with a few other compounds also being formed. The

reaction of allicin and itself, or other compounds, continues until

there is no more allicin as it will all have been converted into

other things.

 

Allicin is a volatile and short-lived (hours or days) compound,

which if left alone, will break down into other compounds, such as

diallyl disulphide. In a matter of hours it will further degrade

into an oily witches brew of bisulphides, trisulphides such as allyl

methyl trisulphide and vinyldithiins and polysulphides and many

others.

 

Allicin is a powerful natural antibiotic (about one-fiftieth

as powerful as penicilin and one-tenth as powerful as tetracycline)

that will kill many kinds of bacteria (including bacillus,

escherischia (E. Coli), mycobacterium, pseudomonas, staphylococcus

and streptococcus) and other microscopic life forms and will kill or

repel small insects and parasites. It also has anti-fungal and anti-

viral properties.

 

Allicin exists only in raw garlic and cooking

causes it to rapidly decay into other compounds which are less

antibiotic in nature, but which result in many of garlics beneficial

effects. Allicin itself breaks down very rapidly in the body as

saliva and stomach acids turn it into various sulfides.

 

Raw garlic contains a few lipids (one or two tenths of a percent).

Oil is not formed until garlic is crushed and steam distilled and

then degrades down into the oily mix of sulfurous compounds,

described above.

 

The more time that elapses after crushing, the more

complex the compounds become and the less sulfurous they smell. The

simpler sulfur compounds have the most smell and the most anti-

bacterial action.

 

The polysulphides which are among the last

breakdown products of allicin have the least taste and smell and the

least immediate antibiotic effects, but are responsible for many of

garlics other physiological effects.

 

It is the allicin which is

garlic's natural protection from pests and diseases and when we eat

the fresh garlic it protects us also. Then it breaks down into other

compounds which are helpful in different ways. Garlic just keeps on

going and going and going.

 

Cooked garlic and garlic oil capsules will have broken down almost

all the way and that makes a difference to us as they have different

effects on the human body and its ailments. As doctor Wargovich at

Houston's M.D. Anderson Hospital once put it, " If it doesn't stink,

it doesn't work " .

 

There is no way to avoid the aroma of garlic about

oneself if one wants it to work. As we say around our place, Garlic

breath is better than no breath. Get used to it and educate your

friends who find the smell of garlic offensive. Bad (garlic) breath

is better than bad health.

 

Even the so-called deodorized garlic

pills or capsules, if they are any good, will cause a garlic smell

to exude from your pores and breath as the garlic works its way

through your circulatory system, lymphatic system and lungs, even if

there is no garlic residual in your mouth and throat. You might as

well develop a good sense of humor about it and if you lose a

superficial friend or two, consider it their loss, not yours. If

they are more concerned about your aroma than being alive and

healthy, are they really the kinds of friends you want anyway?

 

In their wonderfully informative book, " Garlic " , Nature's Original

Remedy - published by Healing Arts Press of Rochester, Vermont,

Stephen Fulder and John Blackwood point out that the Swiss

researchers Stoll and Seebeck found wide variation in the sulfur

content of garlic bulbs they obtained from 12 different parts of

Europe. The samples varied from 500 mg/kg of sulfur to as much as

3720 mg/kg.

 

It seems that the more sulfur in a bulb, the greater is

its potential to produce allicin. Monsignor David Greenstock , head

of Biology at St. Albans College, Valladolid, Spain found similar

differences in bulbs grown in different parts of Spain and noted

that those grown organically had a higher level of sulfur. However,

the book doesn't say whether all test garlics were of the same

variety or anything about soil types and climate, so it would be

interesting to see some more work done in this area. Inquiring minds

want to know for sure.

 

Also in their book, Fulder and Blackwood say that an average clove

of garlic weighs between three and six grams and contains an average

of 1 gram of carbohydrates (90% of which is in a starchy form called

sinistrin), 0.2 gram of protein, 0.05 gram of fiber, 0.01 gram of

fat and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3 and C. The Vitamin B1 (thiamin) is

combined with the allicin and called allithiamine and is easily

absorbed into the intestine.

 

Garlic is said to contain about ten

different kinds of natural sugars which make up about a fourth of

its substances; they include fructose, glucose, inulin and

arabinose - it makes one wonder how garlic can reduce blood sugar as

tests have shown that it does. They further say that garlic is

richer than any other food in adenosine, a nucleic acid which is a

building block of DNA and RNA. Garlic also contains relatively low

levels of the trace minerals copper, iron, zinc, tin, calcium,

manganese, aluminum, germanium and selenium, although they may vary

with soil conditions where the garlic was grown.

 

These trace minerals are an important part of garlic's health

benefits as research shows that deficiencies or imbalances of them

can lead to or contribute to hundreds of health problems. Mineral

deficiencies are said to cause or contribute to everything from age

spots and osteoporosis to arthritis and muscular dystrophy. How many

trace minerals, and in what amounts garlic contains them, is a

direct function of their presence in the soil in which garlic is

grown.

 

Organic and biodynamic growers regularly test their soil for

trace minerals and replenish those with low values. Garlic grown

with artificial fertilizers in depleted soils will contain smaller

amounts of them than garlic grown organically in soils that have had

trace minerals replenished by conscientious growers. If trace

minerals are not present in the soil, garlic cannot contain them.

The content of every plant on this planet is a direct function of

what is in the soil in which it is grown and the water and air it is

supplied.

 

The level of selenium in garlic is at least 9 parts per million and

is said to be higher than in almost any other plant. Selenium is

also found in seafood. A December 1996 issue of the

Journal of the American Medical Association reports that researchers

at the University of Arizona found that patients who received a

daily dose of selenium had 63% fewer cases of prostate cancer, 58%

fewer cases of rectal cancer and 45% fewer cases of lung cancer

compared to a group that received placebos. There were also 50%

fewer cancer deaths than in the placebo group.

 

Among the transient compounds formed when allicin breaks down into

oil are dimethyl disulfide - which gives cabbage its taste, propenyl

disulfide - which gives onions their smell, and propenyl sulphenic

acid - which is the substance in onions that causes tears to flow

when you slice or peel them.

 

These compounds occur in much smaller

quantities in the breakdown of allicin than they do in the other

vegetables mentioned but they give you some idea of the kinds of

compounds that can form just from crushing a clove of garlic.

Please

bear in mind that these compounds, too, are temporary and through

chemical reactions with food substances, saliva and digestive

juices, rapidly turn into other compounds.

 

Just which compounds are formed, and under what circumstances, is

difficult to say with certainty due to the volatility of allicin and

the variability of the compounds it is mixed with to cause the

chemical reactions that result in new substances being formed. For

example if you combine freshly crushed garlic with pure distilled

water, the allicin reacts with the h2o in water to produce new

things.

 

However; tap water is not just h2o, it also contains

chlorine, fluoride, and traces of runoff agricultural chemicals that

flowed into the lake or river from which the water was drawn before

these chemicals were added as well as the waste products from the

aquatic life forms that lived in the source water.

When allicin

combines with this soup, you can see the potential for a whole host

of additional new compounds to form. Likewise, when allicin combines

with butter it forms different compounds than when it combines with

olive oil or milk or pasta or potatoes or whatever foods it is used

with. Applying heat sufficient to convert the allicin into its

breakdown compounds opens up a whole new set of possibilities.

 

A Few Special Garlic Compounds

 

There are a few compounds of special interest, mostly Diallyl

disulfide (DADS) and Diallyl trisulfide (DATS), both fat-soluble,

which have been shown to have anti-cancer activity. There are many

studies showing these compounds are involved in most of garlics'

benefits.

 

There's also some interest in S-allyl cysteine and S-

allylmercaptocystei ne, both water-soluble compounds that are

contained in Kyolic brand aged garlic extract that also have shown

some antitumor activity as well.

 

Numerous studies sponsored by

Kyolic in hospitals have shown beneficial effects in other areas as

well, such as lower cholesterol and blood pressure, etc. Other

researchers point out that in order to demonstrate even minimal

results, very large amounts (way above normal daily usage amounts,)

must be used and that the sulfides (DADS and DATS) produce results

at normal consumption levels.

 

There are some practical ways you can increase the amounts of these

chemicals in the garlic you use. Pickling garlic (whole, sliced,

cubed or crushed) in vinegar causes S-allyl cysteine to form and the

longer you store it, the more is formed up until about 5 years.

 

By

then, it's pretty potent and so's the vinegar it's in as they both

show the same level of S-allyl cysteine (SAC) after about 60 days.

I'm not sure whether it has to be refrigerated or not, but I

refrigerate mine, just to be safe. You might want to make a big

batch, because pickled garlic is so good it is hard to keep it very

long and it just gets better and increases its SAC with age. What a

great way to take medicine - pickled garlic.

 

It's a good idea to let the sliced, cubed or crushed garlic set and

self-marinate for about 10 minutes in order to ripen before putting

it into the vinegar so that the allicin has a chance to maximize and

enhance the flavor and potency of the garlic, whether you pickle it

or roast it or whatever processing you do. Like Chinese mustard, it

takes the allicin a few minutes to build character before using.

 

A good way to maximize the amounts of Diallyl Disulfide (DADS) and

Diallyl trisulfide (DATS) is to roast the chopped garlic in an oven

or microwave it as the heat converts the allicin mostly into DATS

and DADS as well as a few other things. Boiling them in water in a

covered dish for 20 minutes does the same thing, but you lose a

little through steam - you lose a lot if the pan is uncovered.

 

Surprisingly, much of the DADS and DATS are retained by boiling the

chopped, ripened garlic in milk. The boiled milk also retains some

DADS and DATS in the milk solids, presumedly they would go into the

lymphatic system since they are fat-soluble.

 

Complicating the picture are the conflicting findings of research

teams funded by different organizations and not surprisingly, their

findings always seem to favor their company's products. Still, we

try to sift through things and present as balanced a report as we

can. We try to find ways the average person can maximize the

benefits of garlic.

 

There's more to come, please be patient with me while I learn. I'm

trying to upgrade this page to reflect the state of the art

knowledge of garlic chemistry as understood by the top researchers

who meet at the Garlic is Life! Symposium in Tulsa every fall.

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets