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How Garlic and Onions Promote
a Healthy Heart
 By
Dr. Narinder Saini M.D.
Way back in the first century A.D., Dioscorides, the
Roman who codified Greek herbal medicine, wrote in his
Materia Medica that garlic "clears the arteries." And
the ancient Indian Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita holds
that garlic "maintains the fluidity of the blood, strengthens
the heart and prolongs life."
Modern researchers have confirmed that both raw and cooked
garlic and onions contain compounds that inhibit the tendency
to form artery-clogging blood clots, thus lowering heart-attack
risk. There is evidence that a clove a day may also lower
elevated levels of blood cholesterol, as well as high
blood pressure, although not all studies confirm these
benefits. Other alliums compounds have been shown to inhibit
cancer in the test tube and in animals. In population
studies, people who eat more alliums have lower rates
of stomach and other cancers.
Garlic appears to stimulate the body's production of an
enzyme called glutathione-S-transferase, which helps detoxify
potential carcinogens. In a major five-year study of more
than 35,000 women aged 55 to 69 in Iowa, garlic was the
single most protective food against colon cancer.
The women who ate garlic more than once a week had a 32
percent lower risk of colon cancer than those who ate
less than a clove a month. Garlic's sulfur compounds may
offer protection against cancers of the breast, esophagus,
prostate, and stomach. |
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