Do Your Health Some Good with Garlic

In the world of alternative medicine and natural healing, garlic is often known as a wonder drug because of its many beneficial abilities for the body.

Why a wonder drug? Garlic may be stinky but oh how it can heal the body! Garlic can be used to prevent everything from heart disease to a variety of respiratory conditions such as the common cold and the flu. In the past raw garlic was used to treat the symptoms that caused skin disorders such as acne and rashes.

Garlic has been shown through research studies to be instrumental in strengthening the heart and in lowering the bad kind of cholesterol that does harm to the arteries (also known as LDL cholesterol). It may sound funny but it has also been shown to work well at repelling mosquitoes! It is thought to be more than the smell that sends mosquitoes in the opposite direction!

Garlic Does Your Body Good

The fact that garlic has many benefits to health is not simply something that people choose to believe nor is it a type of old wives tale. The benefits of garlic have been borne out in a number of research studies. Garlic may be smelly and somewhat of an acquired taste but it is a natural form of a natural antibiotic in a broad spectrum kind of manner.

The human body does not build up an immunity to garlic which means that the positive health benefits that come from garlic continue to work as time passes. This is such good news for all garlic lovers and soon-to-be garlic lovers! In particular, aged garlic has intense antioxidant qualities. It is antioxidants that help to protect the body against what is known as free radicals. You have probably heard of the term free radicals as the health and medical community often keep talk of them front and center in the media. Free radicals are defined as “highly reactive molecules capable of causing damage in brain and other tissue.” Antioxidants are good and free radicals are bad. Garlic is full of the former. Enough said?

The Two Important Ingredients in Garlic

There are two ingredients in garlic that are medicinal in nature and are to thank for garlic’s many health benefits. The two ingredients are allicin and diallyl sulphides. Allicin is the more intense of the two and it provides the greatest of the health benefits. It is important to point out the fact that allicin is not found in garlic per se but is produced when garlic is either crushed or chopped into fine pieces. The more intense it is crushed and the finer the pieces are chopped, the more allicin will be created and therefore the stronger will be the medicinal benefits.

Allicin is antifungal in nature and is commonly used to treat many fungal infections of the skin such as athlete’s foot. Be aware that being in direct contact with an ample portion of crushed garlic can cause the skin to blister. This is rare but garlic allergies do occur in some people.

On the other hand, diallyl sulphides exhibit less medicinal benefits than allicin but this ingredient is still of use for health. While the sulphides are of no use in the antifungal department, they are useful for the circulation of blood and they help to keep the circulatory system working at its very best. Diallyl sulphides are beneficial to the immune system because they give it a much-needed boost. They also help to lower the LDL (bad) cholesterol in the body. Just the same as allicin, garlic needs to be crushed or chopped to bring out the diallyl sulphides.

Read next post to learn some more important information about garlic.

Samantha