Scientists: Garlic Fights Common Illness Better than Antibiotics

Scientists at Washington State University are now confirming once again what natural health experts have known for years — garlic fights one of the most common food-borne illnesses much more effectively than antibiotics. Garlic has built a strong reputation in fighting infections, a benefit that is but one of many. Campylobacter bacterium, the name for the common bacteria that often results in intestinal illness, affects around 2.4 million Americans per year and is often treated with illness-linked antibiotics, but maybe not anymore.

According to the researchers, the information ‘opens the door’ to the many benefits of garlic when it comes to preventing and fighting infections. This means treating certain food items, cleaning, and use as a healing food substance. Once again, however, these mainstream scientists are simply re-discovering what many cultures have known (and have been utilizing) for centuries! It’s no secret that garlic is really a nutritional powerhouse, a superfood that can boost overall immunity and combat diseases — even superviruses that have the medical community in a frenzy.

Even Greek athletes used garlic to boost their physical performance in the arena due to the deep knowledge of the food’s empowering properties. Leading expert Dr. David Kraus explains:

“People have known garlic was important and has health benefits for centuries,” said Dr. David W. Kraus, associate professor of environmental science and biology at the University of Alabama. “Even the Greeks would feed garlic to their athletes before they competed in the Olympic games.”

Garlic even has a role in the prevention of cancer — the disease that is currently ravaging the population. In fact, it is a role that is quite notorious among cultures who have been using garlic in their dishes for countless years. Scientists believe that the role of garlic in cancer prevention quite possibly has to do with the way that garlic boosts the production of something known as hydrogen sulfide. It is this very substance that also protects the heart. Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that directly injecting hydrogen sulfide into mice almost completely stopped damage to heart muscles as a result of heart attack.

The benefits of garlic are many, and the mainstream scientific community is just catching on to how important of a role garlic plays in the diet.

Additional sources:
http://news.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=31554&TypeID=1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11268223
http://www.aafp.org/afp/2005/0701/p103.html

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Source: http://naturalsociety.com/scientists-garlic-fights-common-illness-better-than-antibiotics/#ixzz1tvCWMBPz