Studies by competent multi-degreed scientists have shown beyond any reasonable doubt that consuming garlic generally has the following physical effects:
* Garlic lowers blood pressure a little. (9% to 15 % with one or two medium cloves per day.)
* Garlic lowers LDL Cholesterol a little. (9% to 15 % with one or two medium cloves per day.)
* Garlic helps reduce atherosclerotic buildup (plaque) within the arterial system. One recent study shows this effect to be greater in women than men.
* Garlic lowers or helps to regulate blood sugar.
* Garlic helps to prevent blood clots from forming, thus reducing the possibility of strokes and thromboses (Hemophiliacs shouldn't use garlic.)
* Garlic helps to prevent cancer, especially of the digestive system, prevents certain tumors from growing larger and reduces the size of certain tumors.
* Garlic may help to remove heavy metals such as lead and mercury from the body.
* Raw Garlic is a potent natural antibiotic that works differently than modern antibiotics and kills some strains of bacteria, like staph, that have become immune or resistant to modern antibiotics.
* Garlic has anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.
* Garlic dramatically reduces yeast infections due to Candida species.
* Garlic has anti-oxidant properties and is a source of selenium.
* Eating garlic gives the consumer an enhanced sense of well being - it makes you feel good just eating it.
* Garlic probably has other benefits as well.
If garlic has all these benefits, why aren't doctors and hospitals recommending it for their patients? In many other countries, they are, but not in the United States. Why? One reason is that medical doctors simply don't know about it as they have very little nutritional instruction or herbal medicine in their medical school education and may be unaware of how garlic works in the human body and there's no FDA-approved treatment protocol that includes garlic. Another reason is that herbal medicine may sound too old fashioned and unsophisticated to them. A third reason is that pharmaceutical manufacturers do not recommend garlic, they recommend their own expensive prescription medicines complete with their side-effects. And, perhaps modern allopathic physicians concentrate more on alleviating symptoms, healing and surgery than prevention of illness through better nutrition and healthier lifestyles, although that may be more the responsibility of the patient than the doctor.
Perhaps the over-riding consideration may be that fresh garlic is a living thing that continuously changes and is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to quantify. Slicing and dehydrating the garlic arrests the changes and freezes it in whatever state it was in and preserves it and allows us to know that it is what it is and will not be changing.
