Garlic helps combat heart disease

Science is finding what folklore already knew. While we may not think of garlic beyond its flavour pleasing effects in cookery, and its less than nose-pleasing after-effects, there's more to it than you might suspect.

Rosie Schwartz, a Registered Dietitian points out that the allium family of plants including garlic, chives, onions and leeks, have been used for centuries as part of medicinal treaments. However it is only relatively recently that science has begun to unravel garlic's special properties.

In 1858 scientist Louis Pasteur demonstrated garlic's anti-bacterial properties. Then during the First World War, it was used to stop the spread of gangrene. Now modern research is investigating garlic's effects as one of the weapons used to fight cardiovascular disease.

This is borne out in the many studies on garlic and heart disease which indicate that its beneficial health effects range from lowering cholesterol, to having an antioxidant effect, to thinning the blood, and assisting in the physioligical functioning of the heart.