The Health Benefits Of Garlic: How This Common Herb Can Transform Your Health
Garlic (called Allium sativum by scientists) is a plant that’s kind of like onions, leeks, and chives. People often use it to help with heart and blood problems.
Inside garlic, there’s a special thing called allicin. This is what makes garlic helpful for certain things. Allicin is also what gives garlic its strong smell. Some products try to get rid of the smell by changing the garlic, but that might also change how it works.
People often use garlic to help with things like high blood pressure (when your blood pushes too hard against your veins), high levels of cholesterol (a type of fat) in the blood, and when the tubes that carry blood get hard. People even use it for the common cold, joint pain, and other problems. But, we don’t have strong proof from science that garlic really helps with all of these things.
Is it Better to Eat Garlic Raw or Cooked?
Deciding how to use garlic for its good effects can be a bit tricky. There was a study that looked at how garlic helps the immune system. It found that both raw and cooked garlic are good, but taking garlic supplements might not be as helpful.
When you cook garlic or use it in recipes, it changes a little. The useful part in garlic, called allicin, needs a bit of time to start working after you cut, crush, or chop the garlic. So, after you do that, let it sit for a little while.
Eating raw garlic is the best way to get the best stuff. But if you want to cook it, don’t heat it too much, not more than 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). If it gets hotter, the allicin gets destroyed. So, it’s a good idea to add garlic to your cooking when you’re almost finished.
Is It Okay to Take Garlic Pills Every Day?
Before you start taking any kind of pill, especially if you plan to take it every day, it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor. This is super important for things like garlic pills.
Sometimes, garlic pills might lead to things like headaches, feeling tired, not wanting to eat, muscle aches, feeling dizzy, or even allergic reactions like asthma attacks or rashes on your skin.
If you’re already taking medicines that make your blood thinner, garlic pills can make these medicines work stronger. This can make it even harder for your blood to clot, which is not good. So, be really careful about this.
Health Benefits of Garlic:
Garlic is like a treasure chest of good things for our bodies. It has important minerals like phosphorus, zinc, potassium, and magnesium. Plus, it’s packed with vitamins like Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate, niacin, and thiamine. All these things together make garlic really good for us.
1. Garlic Helps Keep You Healthy
Your body’s defense system, called the immune system, helps you stay well and fights off sickness. Garlic can give your immune system a boost, which means it can help you avoid getting sick, like having a cold or the flu.
Kids might catch six to eight colds each year, while grown-ups usually get two to four. Eating raw garlic can help protect you from things like coughs, fevers, and colds.
Having two chopped garlic cloves every day is a good way to benefit from garlic’s effects. In certain places, families sometimes put garlic cloves on a string and hang them around their kids’ necks to help when their noses feel blocked.
2. Garlic Can Help with High Blood Pressure
Strokes and heart attacks are really serious health problems all around the world. One big thing that can make these problems more likely is having high blood pressure. High blood pressure is connected to about 70% of strokes, heart attacks, and heart problems. It’s also linked to 13.5% of deaths everywhere.
Since strokes and heart attacks are such big problems, it’s super important to deal with their main cause, which is high blood pressure.
Garlic is a great spice to eat if you have high blood pressure. But even if you’re not a big fan of garlic, taking garlic supplements can still help lower high blood pressure, treat fevers, and do other good things for you.
Just remember, if you’re going to take garlic supplements, make sure the amount is the same as eating four garlic cloves every day. And before you start any new supplements, talk to your doctor.
3. Garlic Can Lower Cholesterol
Cholesterol is like fat in your blood. There are two types: “bad” LDL cholesterol and “good” HDL cholesterol. Having too much LDL cholesterol and not enough HDL cholesterol can cause serious health problems.
Garlic has been shown to lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) by 10 to 15 percent.
Eating garlic doesn’t really change your good cholesterol (HDL) levels. If you have a family history of heart problems or already have heart disease, adding garlic to your diet might be a good idea.
4. Garlic Might Help Prevent Cancer
Garlic doesn’t only help your heart, it might also help prevent cancer. For example, eating fresh garlic could lower the risk of getting colon cancer. One study found that women who regularly ate garlic along with other healthy foods had a 35% lower chance of getting colon cancer. But scientists still need to do more research in this area to be sure.
5. Garlic’s Natural Antibiotic Power
Garlic contains something called allicin, which is like a natural antibiotic. When you cut, crush, or chop garlic, allicin can help fight infections and kill bacteria. Garlic extracts have even been shown to stop the growth of things like fungi, protozoa, viruses, and many types of bacteria.
Allicin is like a natural way to fight infections, almost like antibiotics. It can work well with regular antibiotics too.
6. Garlic Might Help with Memory
Garlic has special things called antioxidants that can protect your body from damage. These antioxidants could help prevent certain brain diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s. But don’t think that taking a lot of garlic supplements means you won’t get these diseases. Garlic can only do so much to help your health.
7. Garlic Can Help Detoxify
Detoxification means cleaning out things that aren’t good for your body. It’s a big deal for staying in good health. Every day, we’re exposed to many chemicals and substances that might not be good for us. These could be things like chemicals in pesticides, radiation from nuclear plants, or even chemicals in products we use at home.
Garlic is like a powerful helper in getting rid of these bad things from our bodies. It helps our liver make something called glutathione, which is really important for detoxifying. Garlic also has other helpful things, like selenium and sulfur compounds, that can detoxify our bodies too.
8. Fights Off Cough and Cold
Eating raw garlic can help keep coughs and colds away. If you eat two crushed garlic cloves on an empty stomach, it’s most effective. For kids and babies, people sometimes hang garlic cloves on a string around their necks to help with stuffy noses.
9. Makes Digestion Better
Eating raw garlic can make your digestion work better. It helps your intestines and reduces swelling. Garlic can even get rid of harmful worms in your intestines. And the best part is, it kills bad bacteria while keeping good bacteria safe in your gut.
10. Boosts Your Immune System
Garlic fights against things that can hurt your body, like free radicals. It stops them from damaging your DNA. There’s a mineral called zinc in garlic that helps make your immune system strong. Also, Vitamin C in garlic fights off infections. It’s really good for preventing infections in your eyes and ears because it can fight germs.
11. Makes Your Skin Healthier
Garlic is helpful for your skin. It can prevent acne and lighten scars from acne. If you have cold sores, psoriasis, rashes, or blisters, applying garlic juice might help. Garlic can also protect your skin from the sun’s rays, which keeps it from aging too quickly.
12. Good for Losing Weight
Eating garlic might help you lose weight. It does this by stopping certain things in your body that make fat cells. Garlic also makes your body use up more energy, which burns extra fat. It even helps lower “bad” cholesterol.
And guess what? Garlic is really nutritious too. Just one small piece of raw garlic has lots of good things like manganese, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, selenium, fiber, and other stuff like calcium, copper, and iron.
13. Reduces Tiredness from Exercise
Some studies from Japan show that aged raw garlic mixed with water and alcohol might help you keep going during exercise. People have done studies with real humans too, and they found that garlic can really make exercise feel easier.
14. Helps Your Heart
Garlic might stop your blood cells from sticking together too much. This is important because when blood cells stick together too much, they can block blood vessels and cause heart problems. Eating garlic can help your blood cells stay separate, which might stop blockages in your heart.
Garlic is like a nutritional powerhouse but doesn’t have a lot of calories.
For its size, garlic is packed with good things for your body. Just one small piece (about the weight of three paperclips) has only 4.5 calories. It also has a tiny bit of protein (like the building blocks for your body) and 1 gram of carbs (which give you energy).
Garlic is especially good because it has important things your body needs, like:
- Manganese (helps with many body processes)
- Vitamin B6 (important for brain and nerve functions)
- Vitamin C (boosts your immune system)
- Selenium (protects your cells)
- Fiber (good for your digestion)
Garlic even has a little bit of other good things your body likes. So, even though it’s small, it’s full of great stuff!
Garlic’s Effect on Physical Performance
Long ago, people used garlic to fight tiredness and help with hard work. Ancient Greek athletes even ate garlic to do better in sports.
As we talked about before, garlic can:
- Help with cholesterol
- Lower blood pressure
- Boost your immune system
- Shorten how long you’re sick
A healthy heart and body can help you stay fit. So, eating garlic might not make you feel tired as quickly when you’re active.
