Allicin (from garlic) and possible benefits for your heart

[southeast-isher]

I was a member of a farming group locally who hosted a talk on garlic and its allicin. I missed the talk but looked a little online about it. Eventually i got some in a 3 for 2 deal in B@@ts the Chemist... you know what i think this stuff is really good. I take two capsules a day and i find it works very well on my heart. It is said to have other uses too. Have a look on youtube at the scientist Peter Josling (from Sussex).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allicin

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIcQUjaYMi4

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv3m9Zg9ihc

[Graye]

Many years ago when I was a teenager and garlic was only something VERY adventurous types rubbed a cut clove around their salad bowl I met a very old man over breakfast at a Bournmouth B & B. He used to peel and swallow a clove every day and swore it kept his heart healthy. He looked around 75 and admitted to 87 so something was working! He said as long as he just swallowed the clove whole he had no aftertaste and no smell about him either. I've always wondered how true his story was!

[southeast-isher]

well the active part of garlic is allicin... that's the bit you want... but it's only around when garlic is crushed or chewed and won't stay around long. So i gather. So you can get these capsules of stabilised allicin to reap the full benefits. Peter Josling is the scientist in the video who worked out how to stabilise allicin.

[greenorelse]

Yes, I've always understood that crushing garlic gives the most benefits, unless you specifically decide to crush the chopped garlic with your teeth! Worth thinking about next time you get garlic bread with chopped garlic on it - chew every bit.

We brought a load of garlic into the lean-to on the back of the house the other day. No problems so far with vampires, I'm sure you'll all be pleased to hear.

[grahamhobbs]

Why not just eat garlic as part of your normal diet, along with loads of other fresh vegetables, especially if you've grown them yourself, I'm sure it will do you more good than any number of capsules.

[MKG]

I don't wish to pour cold water, but the current thinking is that allicin, being highly unstable and breaking down very easily in the human body, is a red herring. Garlic is exceptionally good for you, but it's probably not allicin which provides the benefits.

Mike

[southeast-isher]

Well, Peter Josling says this:

The website www.allicin.com is owned by a Japanese Company called Wakunaga who manufacture the well know retail brand garlic Kyolic – this product cannot produce any allicin at all because they process it all away from the garlic they use during manufacture. The website data relates to pure unstabilised allicin at a concentration approaching 97% pure and this is aggressive to the gut – the website does support us in several ways though as we also agree that all other garlic products get inactivated in the stomach by your own acid! Our stabilised allicin cannot be deactivated as it does not contain alliin or allinase as the allicin is pre-converted and stabilised. It actually likes the acid environment of your stomach and gets absorbed quickly and transported to the circulatory system.



This is a question we get asked very frequently!

Aged garlic (all Kyolic brands) are produced in a manner that completely removes allicin from the starting garlic and therefore the manufacturer is obviously keen to suggest that allicin is unstable. Their extraction process is now over 40 years old and so far they have not published any significant papers on any biological activity against bacteria, virus, fungal species or intestinal parasites. Unfortunately the Japanese manufacturer is still not willing to admit or recognize that a small British company has finally managed to stabilise allicin in a way that means it can be produced on a commercial scale and formulated into products that you can purchase and test for biological activity. This is what you buy in the product called AllicinMAX in the UK (known as Allimax in the USA and Canada and a number of other brands including Alligin, Alli-C, Allicin C,) and this material has very significant biological activity, the results of which have been announced in the Medical and Consumer Press over the last 8 years! Allicin can also be radio labeled and traced in the blood and this was proven in a paper published by the Battel Institute in Switzerland some years ago – again conveniently not recognized by Kyolic!



Stabilised allicin extracts have produced a substantial amount of evidence to confirm significant antimicrobial and anti-parasitic activity as well as cardiovascular benefit and latterly some very exciting anti-cancer work – although of course no claims can be made in this respect for any type of garlic extract. Our invention is the first truly stabilised allicin extract, made in Britain. This patented process uses only temperature, pressure and water to extract allicin for capture as a stable extract. The material has been subject to a lot of testing and we have produced a substantial amount of evidence to confirm the antimicrobial and anti-parasitic activity – so much so that we guarantee that every batch that we manufacture is tested against an MRSA bacteria and proven to kill it before released for sale. This is what you buy with our allicin product . The results of all this work have been published in peer reviewed medical journals, and we have shown that our material can kill a wide range of infectious organisms including MRSA, streptococcus species, cold virus, fungal species and E. Coli. Much of this data is included in the excellent book Allicin – The Heart of Garlic which is available from our web site at www.allicin.co.uk



As allicin is universally recognized as the first breakdown component from fresh garlic we are also confident that as it begins to break down in your body all the beneficial components are produced and so you can get many different benefits from taking stabilized allicin on a regular basis and this is confirmed by some excellent testimonial data indicating not only an ability to kill infection but also to protect patients from a repeat infection.



I hope that this goes someway to answering your question but should you need any further information please do not hesitate to contact me – some extra answers in the body of this email

[MKG]

Well, to be honest, I looked at an awful lot of stuff to form that opinion. And Mr. Josling does, apparently, have a bit of an axe to grind himself. But, as I said, I'm not poo-pooing the efficacy of garlic - more the assumption (and that's all it can be at this point in time) that allicin is the principal active agent. As far as I can see at present, the evidence appears to suggest that allicin will not form in any meaningful quantity within the human body and any that has already formed by "injuring" the garlic will not last for more than five minutes once ingested. Even the prepared allicin (which is coated to ensure that it gets to the gut without too much damage) is questionable, as independent evidence seems to suggest that it then acts to decrease ALL bacteria - good as well as bad - within the gut.

However, the beneficial effects of garlic are indisputable - all I'm saying is that allicin is not, at this moment in time, the major claimant to those benefits.

Mike

[southeast-isher]

You might be right MKG...

[happyhippy]

My best mate in Australia is a trained herbalist and put me onto using garlic years ago.I don't eat it often in food but I do use the capsules.I take one per day,and if I feel a cold coming on or a soar throat or whatever I take up to 4(you have to do this as soon as you start feeling the symptons)and it seems to zap it out before it takes hold.I havent been ill for literally years,and neither has my OH so something must be working lol.