Garlic, wards off more than your co workers and vampires

By 26. February 2015Blog, Health

Garlic, adds a great dimension to your food but let’s face it, unless you live in a country where everyone is eating it every day, to others you will smell.

But the compound that is responsible for that smell is good for you. It is actually the garlic’s defence mechanism. When the bulb is damaged a compound called alliin is converted by an enzyme called alliinase into allicin. Allicin supposedly has been shown to have antifungal, antibiotic and antiviral activity.

As luck would have it, one of the pathogens that garlic defends itself against is closely related to a human pathogen (Burkholderia cepacia complex) that causes lung infections with those of compromised immune systems such as cystic fibrosis suffers. So researchers from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh Medical School decided to test garlic extracts on this human pathogen.

They found that the extracts did demonstrate antimicrobial activity against the pathogen. They suggest that allicin could be used as an adjunct with existing antibiotics to treat Burkholderia cepacia complex infections.

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