The History and Health Benefits of Garlic

The interest in Garlic's potential benefits has ancient origins. Garlic was referenced a number of times in the ancient medical texts of Egypt, Greece, Rome, China & India, each of them prescribed various medical applications for garlic. Hippocrates, the revered physician himself, prescribed garlic to his own patients to treat a variety of conditions. Garlic was one of the first "performance enhancing" agents recorded and were given to Olympic athletes in Greece. Modern science has confirmed many of the early beliefs of applications for garlic used by ancient cultures.

Garlic has been proven in recent studies to lower LDL cholesterol naturally, and is more effective in women than men. Coronary artery disease is a result of plaque buildup in the arteries, and in a continual study at Humboldt University, it was shown after 18 months of a 54 month study that garlic reduced the levels of atherosclerosis and inhibited new plaque growth. Garlic also helps prevent cancer, especially of the digestive system; it also prevents certain tumors from growing and reduces the size of others. In demographic surveys it was shown that using garlic in a variety of ways inhibits cancer cells from multiplying, actually slowing down the process and in some cases may actually reverse it in early stages!

Garlic is also a very powerful natural antibiotic and in emergency situations can be crushed and applied to the site of an open wound to kill bacteria such as staph and strep. These strains of bacteria cannot become immune to garlic's effect as it has modern synthesized antibiotics because garlic kills in a different way. This method works because crushing the garlic releases sulfenic acid which converts to the allicin, the powerful antibiotic compound that kills bacteria. Chewing garlic is also considered crushing it so it works much the same way when swallowed to help reduce infections quickly including yeast infections of the candida species (the most common).