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Lloyd



Joined: 24 Jan 2005
Posts: 2699

PostPosted: Fri Jan 28, 05 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
    

This may be of general interest but I cant be bothered to start a new string so here it is....
Garlic - It could help lose weight, say scientists

By James Chapman, Science Correspondent, Daily Mail 4 December 2001

The health-giving qualities of garlic are almost as well- known nowadays as its pungent smell. But scientists claim to have found a new benefit - they say it can prevent weight gain and might even cause weight loss.

Laboratory tests showed that rats given a high-sugar diet put on less weight if they were also given a garlic compound.

Evidence has already shown garlic is effective in preventing high blood pressure, treating diabetes, curing diarrhoea, lowering the risk of heart attacks and killing cancer cells. Dr David Mirelman, of the Weizmann Institute in Israel, described it as a 'wonder drug" and said it is in the same league as aspirin.

Key to its health-giving properties, he says, is a compound called allicin that gives its powerful smell. He has produced a synthetic version of the compound, which is nature's way of protecting garlic from insects, fungi and bacteria in the soil, and eats it with yoghurt every day.

A team of doctors used Dr Mirelman's allicin on rats to test whether garlic could combat high blood pressure and prevent diabetes and heart attacks. It destroyed the build-up of plaque in coronary arteries, reducing the symptoms of diabetes and bringing down blood pressure in rats which were fed a high-sugar diet for three weeks before been given allicin.

The blood pressure and sugar metabolism of rats given allicin after the high sugar diet went back to normal within two weeks. But the statistics of rats in a control group that did not receive the garlic com- pound rocketed and remained high.

The researchers were also amazed to see that none of the rats given allicin gained weight, and now want to conduct tests on obese rats to see whether allicin causes weight loss.

Dr Mirelman stumbled across garlic's medicinal properties on a trip to China for a conference on dysentery. A Chinese physician there showed off his cure for the often deadly stomach illness - a bottle of crushed raw garlic soaked in alcohol.

'He gave dysentery patients half a glass of the yellow liquid twice a day,' said Dr Mirelman. 'I asked him how well it worked and he said it's been curing people for 5,000 years

'So I took the recipe and studied it. I isolated each of the components in garlic and found the most effective component was allicin. It was highly effective at killing a wide range of micro-organisms from fungi to bacteria and malaria.'

In separate experiments, Dr Mirelman has found that garlic destroys cancer cells in the laboratory. In the next decade, he believes it could form the basis for new anti-cancer treatments.
Another study showed that those who take a garlic supplement each - day are far less likely to fall victim to the common cold. Garlic has been used as a medicine for thousands of years.

Egyptian hieroglyphics record that garlic was given to the workers who built the pyramids to keep them ' strong and healthy.

j. [email protected]

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