Garlic and Heart Health

Garlic, believed by experts to be one of the oldest cultivated plants in history, carries with it an extensive list of diseases it is thought to be helpful in relieving. A major player in herbal medicine throughout the world, it has been used for a wide variety of conditions including dysentery, tuberculosis and influenza for at least five thousand years.

These days, however, we've "rediscovered" it for the treatment of two common, modern-day maladies: hypertension (high blood pressure) and hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol and related conditions). Both of these conditions contribute to an elevated risk for heart disease and strokes.

In truth, there are great medications available by prescription for both hypertension and hyperlipidemia. Those individuals severely afflicted probably need to be on one of them rather than relying on garlic or any herbal product to be effective enough to control their conditions. But many people have mildly elevated blood pressure and/or cholesterol, just the kind of condition for which garlic should be considered as an alternative to expensive prescription medication.

Scientists have studied garlic fairly extensively as it relates to the treatment of hypertension and hyperlipidemia and it seems to be effective in lowering blood pressure and cholesterol in individuals who take it on a regular basis. The active component of garlic is an amino acid called alliin which is further converted to allicin and other active metabolites. Any garlic you purchase should be standardized in the amount of allicin it contains.

As I mentioned, the studies on garlic as treatment for the above conditions are very good , however it is important to know that they didn't just use your average cloves of garlic off the grocery store shelf when conducting these studies. In fact, many of the clinical studies were done using Kwai, an encapsulated form of garlic containing standardized amounts of allicin. What this means is that it's difficult to say whether or not a couple of cloves of fresh garlic taken daily in your diet will be adequate to achieve the kind of results you may be looking for.

For this reason, I feel uncomfortable recommending anything other than Kwai or a similar standardized preparation. Each capsule of Kwai contains 150 milligrams of concentrated garlic (the equivalent of 450 milligrams of fresh clove) standardized to 900 micrograms of allicin. A total of four capsules daily are recommended.

Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you are taking garlic as interactions between it and some blood thinners have been reported.