Garlic ?????????

Good question,

I noticed a similar deal, the older pills in my cabinet were the gel form, but I think that the crushed powder named allicin is more potent.

I haven't started Garlic into my mix yet, but it is on my upcoming list from the doctor. Specifically she lists it as allicin.

The brand I was suggested to use is Allimax, but on first look, it sounds expensive.

pulled from Wise Geek http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-allicin.htm

Allicin is a compound that is obtained when fresh garlic is chopped, crushed or otherwise damaged in some manner. The compound has been found to possess both antibacterial and antifungal properties, which helps to make allicin effective in the treatment of several diseases. However, allicin is not considered to be a stable compound, and will have a relatively short shelf life.

Garlic in its natural state is not a good source of allicin. However, when the garlic bulb is cut or bruised in some manner, enzymes in the garlic begin to react and create the compound.

If you are taking garlic for it's anti-microbial potential, then you must either eat it fresh or take it in freeze-dried form. There are no other options if you wish to exploit garlic's thiosulfinates, of which allicin is the most well known.

Allicin for one is created when you crush the clove, and even if constantly refrigerated it's halflife probably isn't better than about a month. I don't expect any of us have ever brought garlic from the refrigeration section of health food stores. Freeze drying is the only way to extend the potency of the thiosulfinates for months. Remember the claims of allicin potential on labels is not regulated by the FDA....manufacturers could claim any amount they choose. (probably the amounts claimed by reputable companies is the amount essayed when the garlic was bottled, NOT the amount you're consuming x number of months later)

Back when I first started taking garlic I could only find two freeze-dried preparations, one by Jarrow and one by Pharmax. about a year ago it seems Jarrow stopped making their freeze-dried product. Pharmax is pricey, but excellent stuff. By far the cheaper way to go is buy yourself a cheap $12 coffee grinder at Walmart, and dedicate it to grinding fresh gloves. Drink a few after each meal of the day, 6 minimum. You have to consume a lot of garlic to get enough of the anti-microbials to be therapeutic.

If you can swing the price, and prefer to just take caps, this place has the best price on Pharmax garlic I've ever seen: http://www.healingedge.net/store/more_pha_freezedg.html

susan1122 said...
I'm thinking of starting garlic with Mesosilver. I'd also love to know if the Allicin capsules work. And if anyone has had any luck with garlic.

I was going to try it for Candida...but if it helps Lyme, too that would be great. After the last post I don't know whether to do the freeze-dried or the capsules. I did look up the pharmax's freeze-dried garlic and it says it's odor free. I thought it wasn't suppose to work if there was no odor?

Lyme is so frustrating...I wish there were some hard, proven facts for a cure....or remission.

LOL....marketing talk. It definitely ain't odor free.

My bottle does say fresh freeze dried. Are you saying they can say that and not really have done it?

Thanks everyone! And Sulma, very interesting that they say odor free and it's not! But good to know, thanks! Seeingstars...I think Sulma was talking about the odor..not the fresh freeze dried part. What kind of garlic do you have?

Hopingtofindcure...I'll try the fresh minced and see if it helps and if I can stand it. : )

Thanks Seeingstars!!

Hi Sulma,

How much do you take of the freeze dried? I'm not sure I can eat that much fresh. lol.

Susan

susan1122 said...
Hi Sulma,

How much do you take of the freeze dried? I'm not sure I can eat that much fresh. lol.

Susan

for general detox and to kill infections in the GI tract, it doesn't seem like you don't need very much. In only about 3 weeks my energy level and sex drive rebounded really well and all the symptoms with my digestion cleared up with about 5,000mg daily. To make any headway against the infection itself though (Bb), it seems like you need double that at least, and it takes much longer to see any improvement. I took 10,400mg daily for 3 months solid before I started to see some noticeable improvement in other symptoms (like my paresthesias for example), and that got pretty pricey. Deitritch Klinghardt, as well as Weil and Zhang, say the garlic antimicrobial compounds kill borrelia in all parts of the body, but if it does I think it takes a lot of it, and a long time to do it. It definitely kills the funky stuff all the way through the GI tract pretty quick and it is somehow detoxing the adrenals and the ovaries. That alone is enough for me to recommend it.



EDIT: Susan, and everyone else, I think some people may be thinking of the entire piece of fresh garlic as a clove. That's a bulb. A clove is one of the constituent parts into which the bulb separates when you peal it. Like the pieces of an orange would be "cloves". If you ate two whole bulbs you'd be getting quite a load of allicin, provided you crushed it, not minced it.

Post Edited (Sulma) : 1/29/2009 1:21:53 PM (GMT-7)

Chris L said...
Suma,

From where are you basing your recommendation of fresh garlic intake? Just curious as I was going to start fresh garlic as well.

I'm guessing you mean the amount of it?

My pharmax bottle indicates how many milligrams of thiosulfinates (including allicin) it contains per cap, and I calculated the number of grams that equals in a day. I had to take 10,400 mgs a daily of the freeze-dried caps to begin to see any real remediation of my deep tissue symptoms like paresthesias, and that was only 132mg of total thiosulfinates a day, only part of which is allicin. I read somewhere that allicin comprises no more than half of the total thiosulfinates in a fresh clove, so I guess I probably don't get more than about 65mg of allicin out of 10 grams of freeze-dried in a day.

I read in a few places that crushed (in a garlic press) fresh garlic yields anywhere from 4mg to 12mg of allicin. I went with the average for my estimate, 8mg. So I'm estimating that probably six cloves a day would be about the minimum I'd need to continue to see the same benefit if I switched to fresh. Then I found a guy on the CanLyme site that said he ate 8 cloves a day to get the Lyme killing benefit of fresh garlic, so it kind of supported my "guestimate".

Thank you so much, Sulma! I will get the freeze-dried garlic. What you wrote (the GI tract getting better, etc.) is exactly what I am looking for....and little has helped so far. Thanks again!!

What about liquid allimax?  I bought awhile back, but never did try it (except for once)?  Is it a good source of allicin?  I don't hear it mentioned much.