Garlic as an antibiotic

[Fabbs]

Good stuff is what the consensus seems to be.

Q. Must it be fresh garlic vs bottled or even cut then having sat for a while?
A. I believe fresh is best. I try to consume the freshly cut/minced/Vitamixed within 5 minutes. No longer then one hour.

[AaronY]

When I had MRSA I read all kinds a of stuff about garlic being able to kill MRSA and being a potent antibiotic..supposedly a compound in it called allicin was super healthy, you had to crush the garlic and expose it to air for like ten minutes for it to become active then I read that allicin doesnt even survive the digestive tract and some people swear by this pill called allimed (https://www.google.com/search?q=alli...&client=safari) which supposedly has a stabilized version of allicin that makes it into your system..I starting crushing garlic and putting it on everything when I had mrsa and now just like the taste of it..supposedly there's other compounds in it which are good for you..

[Drachen]

I eat garlic all the time. It's freakin great.

[AaronY]

It has to do with sulfur compounds like the stuff in eggs, cabbage, broccoli supposedly there's a whole bunch of them that are really good for your health and they help your body produce this antioxidant called glutathione which is the body's main antioxidant (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobile..._b_530494.html)
(http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organosulfur_compounds)

[AaronY]

I'm a big like fitness/weightlifting nut and there's also very preliminary evidence that garlic could maybe help burn fat an build muscle

http://www.ergo-log.com/garlic-enhan...f-running.html

http://www.ergo-log.com/anabolicgarlic.html

[The Reckoning]

my iranian roommate only eats garlic, oranges and honey when he's sick and doesn't take any medicines. he's never ill for more than a couple of days.

[Death In June]

Garlic does not have antibiotic properties. It does have some anti-fungal use, though. Applying a garlic gel containing 0.6% ajoene is about as effective as Lamisil for ring worm and jock itch. Applying a 1% gel is as effective as Lamisil for athletes foot. It also has some use in moderately reducing blood pressure and improving age related atherosclerosis. There's also some preliminary evidence for its use in colds (reduces frequency) and wart removal.

Obviously, there are some dose-related side effects - breath and body odor, mouth and gastrointestinal burning, heartburn, flatulence, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and platelet dysfunction (increase risk for bleeding).

[AaronY]

Garlic does not have antibiotic properties.

You have literally no clue what you're talking about

http://m.theepochtimes.com/n3/75743-...es-antibiotic/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic#Properties
http://m.naturalnews.com/news/035821...tibiotics.html

[Death In June]

You have literally no clue what you're talking about

http://m.theepochtimes.com/n3/75743-...es-antibiotic/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garlic#Properties
http://m.naturalnews.com/news/035821...tibiotics.html

Wikipedia is a fine go-to resource when you're in need of quick answers, but it is not a reliable source of information. Neither is natural news or the epochtimes. Drug information is what I do for a living. I'll give you that pharmacognosy is not my background. There may be some study somewhere stating that Garlic has some sort of antibacterial mechanism, but that's not where the established, reliable, and validated consensus is.

[AaronY]

Wikipedia is a fine go-to resource when you're in need of quick answers, but it is not a reliable source of information. Neither is natural news or the pochtimes. Drug information is what I do for a living.

Then you're ty at your job..here's a couple of hundred studies confirming Garlics antibiotic properties both en vitro and en vivo

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=garlic+antibiotic

[Death In June]

Antibiotic is a term that's used incorrectly. As I mentioned, it has anti-fungal effects and appears to have antiviral effects. What you showed me are a bunch of links to studies that you haven't read or have any context for. Lets take H. Pylori, for example. Lots of links of studies to H. Pylori. Yes, taking garlic orally for H. pylori infection used to look promising due to laboratory and epidemiological evidence showing some potential. But, when garlic cloves, powder, or oil is used in humans, it doesn't seem to have any beneficial effect for treating patients with H. Pylori/PUD. Like I said, there's probably studies showing a mechanism for activity, but does that translate into any meaningful impact on your health? Right now, the evidence doesn't support it.

[AaronY]

It def. has antibiotic properties..topically and and en vitro its very potent; it even kills/severely limits mrsa:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15250668
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19734685
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21921868

Problem is allicin maybe doesn't survive the digestive tract..but there are other antibiotic compounds in garlic..so its still very preliminary in whether you casn just eat it and use it as an antibiotic or like I said its needs a delivery system but its very promising..

[Death In June]

That's well and good - but those are not clinical trials. To my knowledge, there hasn't been a solid body of clinical trials (that is, using humans) championing the efficacy of garlic in fighting bacterial infections. I may be wrong. Maybe this is a gap in my knowledge. But I would not put my faith in garlic, especially against something formidable, like MRSA.

As far as garlic/acillin, there are a lot of preparations available that are enteric coated to protect the active cons uents from being degenerated by stomach acid.

[Fabbs]

Death In June,
Putting the garlic aside for a moment, is there a natural ingredient you would use for an antibiotic?
Same Q for MRSA.

[AaronY]

That's well and good - but those are not clinical trials. To my knowledge, there hasn't been a solid body of clinical trials (that is, using humans) championing the efficacy of garlic in fighting bacterial infections. I may be wrong. Maybe this is a gap in my knowledge. But I would not put my faith in garlic, especially against something formidable, like MRSA.

As far as garlic/acillin, there are a lot of preparations available that are enteric coated to protect the active cons uents from being degenerated by stomach acid.

Yeah, Allimed the one i mentioned is raved about on mrsa forums but thats just word of mouth obv. Sone people drink concentrated gatlic water tho thats nasty. Its still very early in the research phase. From what i understand with things like this No one is likely going to do large scale trials for garlic because there's no money to be made on it..A company like Merck is not spend tens of millions of dollars doing phase I and II clinical trials to get FDA approval for donething you can get 20 bulbs of $4 at Sam's Club so best we can hope for is some small scale trials, it'll never be snything to replace a scrip and you're better off going with a real antibiotic that had tons of en vivo research behind it

[lefty]

I always "cook" some garlic in olive oil when I'm sick

works.

[Death In June]

Death In June,
Putting the garlic aside for a moment, is there a natural ingredient you would use for an antibiotic?
Same Q for MRSA.

There are a few that have some good evidence. I like andrographis for colds, elderberry for the flu. Tea tree oil is as effective as benzoyl peroxide in treating acne. Is there a natural supplement out there for MRSA? Not that I'm aware of. There might be. But if I was having my family member or myself treated, I would much rather have a tried and true antibiotic. You don't around with staph infections.

[Rogue]

fresh garlic might be the better antibiotic but if you're about to eat it, those which've been cut and sit for a while are the best of all. oxygenation will help extract its nutrition out of the cells and make it easier to be absorbed

[AaronY]

Yeah, without a doubt if you suspect you have mrsa seek medical attention immediately and make sure to have them take a culture of your infection and send it off to a lab and they test it to see what antibiotic works for your particular strain of mrsa..have boils lanced by a professional don't around with them at home that's how you get them to start spreading all over your body..the pus that comes out us super contagious

Mrsa lives on the skin for a long time in millions of people without ever causing any harm..there's two schools of thought about how to deal with it long term if you have recurrent infections; one is to just try to disinfect the out of everything and eliminate it problem with that is its so prevalent that you basically become like a Howard Hughes OCD type chronic cleaner; some people I read about taking bleach bathes, showering with hibiclens every day, using alcohol based hand sanitizer instead of washing their hands etc. ehen the is in like everything from the meat you get st the grocery (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0120182427.htm http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3188174) which you presumably handle with your hands to all over the equipment at your average gym is kind of hard to never come in contact with it (continued in next post)

[AaronY]

The other school is just to keep your immune system strong and eat healthy (things like Vitamin D deficiency influence mrsa outbreaks and carrier status (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20210515/) and to keep your blood slighter thinner since that prevents boils from bring able to form..There's a lot of people using turmeric to prevent mrsa boils since its supposedly a potent blood thinner, there was also a study that showed that one full strength aspirin lowered the risk of mrsa infection by 54% (http://ndri.com/article/regular_dose..._mrsa-268.html). Manuka honey has a lot of good preliminary research behind it as a mrsa wound dressing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/ar...=feeds-newsxml

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...uka-honey.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=manuka+mrsa

Thats what I put on my boils after the doctor lanced them..


Honestly tho, it's not worth worrying about any of that unless you're at increased risk or have had multiple infections though..Best you can do if you've never had mrsa is just practice good personal hygiene, shower after coming home from the gym, and wash your bed sheets with bleach once a week..

[leemajors]

Taking acidophilus daily is a good way to avoid getting MRSA in the first place.

[exstatic]

There are a few that have some good evidence. I like andrographis for colds, elderberry for the flu. Tea tree oil is as effective as benzoyl peroxide in treating acne. Is there a natural supplement out there for MRSA? Not that I'm aware of. There might be. But if I was having my family member or myself treated, I would much rather have a tried and true antibiotic. You don't around with staph infections.

Tea tree oil is the . It's anti-biotic, anti-viral, and anti-fungal. That will kill anything. The only drawback is that it's ONLY topical. It cannot be safely ingested. You can literally use it on cuts/scrapes, zits, jock itch or ringworm, cold sores, or warts.

[AaronY]

Tea tree oil is the . It's anti-biotic, anti-viral, and anti-fungal. That will kill anything. The only drawback is that it's ONLY topical. It cannot be safely ingested. You can literally use it on cuts/scrapes, zits, jock itch or ringworm, cold sores, or warts.

Interdasting..that's one thing I know nothing about..never even heard of it till now

[leemajors]

Tea tree oil is the . It's anti-biotic, anti-viral, and anti-fungal. That will kill anything. The only drawback is that it's ONLY topical. It cannot be safely ingested. You can literally use it on cuts/scrapes, zits, jock itch or ringworm, cold sores, or warts.

Good for bug bites as well.