Garlic is the Greatest (Candida, HBP, Toxic Liver, Cancer, Dementia, etc

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Garlic is the Greatest (Candida, HBP, Toxic Liver, Cancer, Dementia,

etc JoAnn Guest

Jun 15, 2006 11:58 PDT

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Garlic is the Greatest

LATIN NAME: Allium sativum -FAMILY NAME: Alliaceae

James A. Dukes, Ph.D.

 

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 harmful

lipids, 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 non-gmo 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 lipids

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

lipids, and about a dozen that help reduce the risk of stroke and

blood clots.

 

You've probably heard about high-density lipoprotein (HDL),

and " bad, " or low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

Too much of the wrong kind of lipids 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

mrsjo-

http://www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest