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Garlic has a strong aroma and delicious taste and is used in almost all dishes around the world. When raw, it has a strong spicy flavor that matches the truly powerful properties of garlic.
It is particularly high in certain sulfur compounds, which are believed to be responsible for its smell and taste and have very positive effects on human health.
Garlic is second only to turmeric in the number of studies supporting the benefits of this superfood. At the time of publication of this article, more than 7,600 peer-reviewed articles have assessed the vegetable’s ability to prevent and alleviate various diseases.
Do you know what all these studies showed? Regular consumption of garlic is not only good for us, it can reduce or even help prevent the four leading causes of death worldwide, including heart disease, stroke, cancer and infections.
The National Cancer Institute does not recommend any dietary supplements for cancer prevention, but does recognize garlic as one of several vegetables with potential anti-cancer properties.
This vegetable should be consumed by every inhabitant of the planet, with the exception of the most extreme, rare cases. It is cost effective, very easy to grow and tastes amazing.
Learn more about the benefits of garlic, its uses, research, how to grow garlic, and some delicious recipes.
Onions are a perennial plant of the amaryllidaceae family (Amaryllidaceae), a group of bulbous plants that includes garlic, leeks, onions, shallots and green onions. Although often used as a herb or herb, garlic is botanically considered a vegetable. Unlike other vegetables, it is added to a dish along with other ingredients rather than cooked on its own.
Garlic grows as bulbs under the soil. This bulb has long green shoots coming out from the top and roots going down.
Garlic is native to Central Asia but grows wild in Italy and southern France. The bulbs of the plant are what we all know as vegetables.
What are garlic cloves? Garlic bulbs are covered with several layers of inedible papery skin, which, when peeled, reveals up to 20 small edible bulbs called cloves.
Speaking of the many varieties of garlic, did you know that there are over 600 varieties of this plant? Generally speaking, there are two main subspecies: sativum (soft-necked) and ophioscorodon (hard-necked).
The stems of these plant species are different: soft-neck stems consist of leaves that remain soft, while hard-neck stems are tough. Garlic flowers come from the petioles and can be added to recipes to add a mild, sweet or even spicy flavor.
Garlic Nutrition Facts Contains countless important nutrients—flavonoids, oligosaccharides, amino acids, allicin, and high levels of sulfur (to name a few). Regular consumption of this vegetable has been proven to provide incredible health benefits.
Raw garlic also contains about 0.1% essential oil, the main components of which are allylpropyl disulfide, diallyl disulfide and diallyl trisulfide.
Raw garlic is usually measured in cloves and is used for culinary and medicinal purposes. Each clove is packed with healthy ingredients.
These are just some of the key nutrients found in this vegetable. It also contains alliin and allicin, health-promoting sulfur compounds. The benefits of allicin are particularly well established in research.
Scientists are interested in the potential of these sulfur compounds extracted from vegetables to prevent and treat chronic and fatal diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as other benefits of garlic.
As you’ll soon see, the benefits of raw garlic are numerous. It can be used as an effective form of botanical medicine in a variety of ways, including the following.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the number one killer in the United States, followed by cancer. This vegetable is widely known as a preventive and therapeutic agent for many cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, including atherosclerosis, hyperlipidemia, thrombosis, hypertension and diabetes.
A scientific review of experimental and clinical studies on the benefits of garlic found that overall, consumption of this vegetable has significant cardioprotective effects in both animals and humans.
Perhaps the most surprising feature is that it has been shown to help reverse heart disease in its early stages by removing plaque buildup in the arteries.
A 2016 randomized, double-blind study published in the Journal of Nutrition involved 55 patients aged 40 to 75 who were diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. Study results show that aged garlic extract is effective in reducing plaque in the coronary arteries (the arteries that supply blood to the heart) in people with metabolic syndrome.
This study further demonstrates the benefits of this supplement in reducing the accumulation of soft plaque and preventing the formation of new plaque in the arteries, which can lead to heart disease. We have completed four randomized studies, which lead us to the conclusion that aged garlic extract may help slow the progression of atherosclerosis and reverse the early stages of cardiovascular disease.
According to a review published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, allium vegetables, especially garlic and onions, and the bioactive sulfur compounds they contain are believed to influence every stage of cancer development and influence many biological processes that alter cancer risk.
Several population-based studies have shown an association between increased garlic intake and a reduced risk of certain types of cancer, including stomach, colon, esophageal, pancreatic and breast cancer.
When it comes to how eating this vegetable can prevent cancer, the National Cancer Institute explains:
… The protective effects of garlic may be due to its antimicrobial properties or its ability to prevent the formation of carcinogens, prevent the activation of carcinogens, enhance DNA repair, reduce cell proliferation, or induce cell death.
A French study of 345 breast cancer patients found that increasing intake of garlic, onions and fiber was associated with a statistically significant reduction in breast cancer risk.
Another cancer that benefits from eating vegetables is pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest types of cancer. The good news is that scientific research shows that increasing your garlic intake may reduce your risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
A population-based study in the San Francisco Bay Area found that people who consumed more garlic and onions had a 54% lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer compared to those who consumed less garlic. Research also suggests that increasing your overall intake of fruits and vegetables may protect against pancreatic cancer.
This popular vegetable also holds promise in treating cancer. Its organosulfur compounds, including DATS, DADS, ajoene, and S-allylmercaptocysteine, have been found to induce cell cycle arrest when added to cancer cells in in vitro experiments.
Additionally, these sulfur compounds have been found to induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) when added to various cancer cell lines grown in culture. Oral administration of liquid extract of garlic and S-allylcysteine (SAC) has been reported to increase cancer cell death in animal models of oral cancer.
Overall, this vegetable clearly shows real potential as a cancer-fighting food and should not be ignored or underestimated.
An interesting fact is that this common herb helps control high blood pressure. One study examined the effectiveness of aged garlic extract as an adjunctive treatment in people who were already taking antihypertensive medications but whose high blood pressure was not controlled.
The study, published in the scientific journal Maturitas, involved 50 people with “uncontrolled” blood pressure. Research has shown that taking four capsules of aged garlic extract (960 mg) daily for three months can reduce blood pressure by an average of 10 points.
Another study published in 2014 found that the vegetable “has the potential to lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension, similar to standard blood pressure medications.”
This study further explains that polysulfides in vegetables help open or widen blood vessels, thereby lowering blood pressure.
Experiments have shown that garlic (or specific compounds found in vegetables, such as allicin) can be very effective in killing countless microorganisms that cause some of the most common and rare infections, including the common cold. This can actually help prevent colds and other infections.
In one study, people took garlic supplements or a placebo for 12 weeks during the cold season (November to February). People who took this vegetable caught colds less often, and if they did get sick, they recovered faster than the group taking a placebo.
The placebo group was also more likely to have more than one cold during the 12-week treatment period.
Research links this vegetable’s ability to prevent colds to its main bioactive ingredient, allicin. Its antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties can help relieve colds and other infections.
Allicin is believed to play an important role in the antibacterial abilities of this vegetable.
A clinical trial is testing a practice that surveys show is becoming increasingly popular in Turkey: using garlic to treat baldness. Researchers from Iran’s Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences tested the effectiveness of applying garlic gel to the scalp twice daily for three months on people taking corticosteroids to treat hair loss.
Alopecia is a common autoimmune skin disorder that causes hair loss on the scalp, face, and sometimes other parts of the body. There are various treatments, but there is no cure.
Post time: May-06-2024