Garlic study busts health myth

[snopes]

Scratch one more long-held folk belief: Garlic, whether eaten raw or taken as a dietary supplement, does not appear to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journal...g/16882228.htm

[Jay Tea]

That's the thing with this sort of knowledge - somestudies get everybody excited and others pour water on the findings, the way things were going with garlic you'd have thought it was the greatet cure-all of our time, but it is still proven to improve circulation, anti-blood clotting etc, due to the allicin and thiosulphinate, Diallyl disulfide is still being studied as it reduces cancer growths and it’s antibiotic capabilities are still exciting the people at the New Scientist, so I’d not throw all your bulbs out just yet

(Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol 55, p 1280).

Personally I think the hype around garlic comes from vampire folklore. It got a mystical reputation which followed into new age stuff and then all this faddy science. It's only when science calms down and has a proper look we find out it has nothing special.

[kitoboo]

Garlic tastes good. I'll continue to eat it.

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

Personally I think the hype around garlic comes from vampire folklore. It got a mystical reputation which followed into new age stuff and then all this faddy science. It's only when science calms down and has a proper look we find out it has nothing special.

Hardly. I think the media and lifestyle moguls and herbal medicine pedallers all need/needed to calm down, but 'science' has kept a cool head. And garlic 'has' proven health benefits, even if we are talking about beneficial trace elements and not life-extending cancer cures. Science will sort out the wheat from the chaff as far as garlic's actual curative benefits go, but if you ever gobbled down expensive garlic caps I doubt you got more health benefits than those gleaned from a balanced diet and an active lifestyle, certainly, but don't blame 'science'.

[snapdragonfly]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

Hardly. I think the media and lifestyle moguls and herbal medicine pedallers all need/needed to calm down, but 'science' has kept a cool head. And garlic 'has' proven health benefits, even if we are talking about beneficial trace elements and not life-extending cancer cures. Science will sort out the wheat from the chaff as far as garlic's actual curative benefits go, but if you ever gobbled down expensive garlic caps I doubt you got more health benefits than those gleaned from a balanced diet and an active lifestyle, certainly, but don't blame 'science'.

Yep.

Just because a food isn't a miracle cure all for everything from singing off key to gout, doesn't mean it has no beneficial properties at all. There's a wide wide range in between the two extremes.

[FullMetal]

I think the same thing is for everything. Just because something is purported to be a cure-all, i think anything remotely good for you has been claimed a cure-all at one point or another, and then found not to be. fibre comes to mind. gotta eat more fibre. Garlic is just the latest to fall victim to it. you have to take "cure-alls" with a grain of salt. they're probabally good for you, but not the cure-all it claims to be. when I cure-all is discovered, I'll gladly eat my cloves of garlic with red-wine and a big bowl of oat-bran.

And then I'll take two asprin and call you in the morning.