Garlic-Allium sativum

1
Garlic-Allium sativum
2
Garlic The Plant and History
3
Garlic Plant

• Garlic, Allium sativum, is a root crop (meaning
  the bulb grows underground) of the family
  Alliaceae
• It is among the oldest of all cultivated plants
  in facts, its species name, sativum, means
  cultivated
• The leaves are long, narrow and flat like grass
• It is a member of the same group of plants as the
  Onion, Chive, and Leek

4
Garlic Flower

• The flowers are placed at the end of a stalk
  rising directly from the bulb, grouped together
  in a globular head, or umbel, with an enclosing
  leaf-like structure called spathae, and among
  them are small bulbils
• Garlic flowers, though pretty, were rarely picked
  as ornament because of their strong odor

5
Garlic Bulb

• The bulb of Allium sativum is the only part of
  the plant eaten
• It is compound in nature, consisting of numerous
  bulbils, known technically as cloves
• The cloves are grouped together between the
  membranous scales and enclosed within a whitish
  skin, which holds them as in a sac

6
History

• Originated from Central Asia, garlic have been
  used as a spice, food and folklore medicine for
  over 5000 years, and is the most widely
  researched medicinal plant
• Through trade, garlic spread its popularity
  throughout Asia and eventually to Egypt and
  Europe. The Age of Exploration helped to
  propagate the use of garlic to other parts of the
  world
• Today somewhere between 300-400 varieties of
  garlic cultivate worldwide. In the United
  States, over 250 million pounds of garlic
  consumed each year

7
Medicinal History of Garlic

• In traditional Chinese medicine, Islamic
  medicine, folklore medicine and the Ayurvedic
  system of medicine, several spices and herbs
  including garlic are described to possess
  medicinal properties
• In China, garlic tea has long been recommended
  for fever, headache, and cholera
• In rural Japan, miso-soup containing garlic is
  used as remedy for the common cold with headache,
  fever and sort throat

8
Medicinal History of Garlic

• The Egyptian medical Codex Eber papyrus dating to
  about 1550 B.C., includes 22 therapeutic
  formulations that mention garlic as an effective
  remedy for a variety of ailment including heart
  problems, headache, bites, worms and tumors
• Dioscorides wrote of garlic ability to clear the
  arteries dated back to the first century A.D.
• It is reported that in ancient Egypt , the
  workers who had to build the great pyramids were
  fed their daily share of garlic as a form of
  healthy prolongation
• From the Roman antiquity through World War I,
  garlic poultices were used to prevent wound
  infections

9
Medicinal History of Garlic

• Early 1853, the famous microbiologist, Louis
  Pasteur, performed several original work showing
  that garlic could kill bacteria
• In 1916, the British government issued a general
  plea for the public to supply it with garlic in
  order to meet wartime needs.
• Garlic was called Russian penicillin during
  World War II because, after running out of
  antibiotic, the Russian government turned to this
  ancient treatment for its soldiers
• After World War II, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals
  manufactured a garlic compound for intestinal
  spasms, and the Van Patten Company produced
  another for lowering blood pressure

10
Common Uses and Benefits of Garlic Consumption

• Common cold prevention
• Heart disease prevention
• Antiseptic
• Antimicrobial activities
• Insect repellent
• Anticancer effects

• Strengthen Immune System
• Vaginal Infections
• Antioxidant effects
• Anti coagulation effects
• High cholesterol
• Hypertension
• Ward off vampires(?)

11
Common Uses and Benefits of Garlic Consumption

• Although many of the claimed benefits of garlic
  consumption date back as far in history as
  ancient Chinese civilizations, ancient Egyptian,
  and Greece and Roman, most claims are based on
  folklore or its use in ancient herbal medicine
• Until relatively recently, little scientific data
  supported these claims most clinical studies
  attempting to document scientifically the
  benefits of garlic consumption have been
  performed in the last 40 years

12
Few Compounds Isolated From Garlic Bulbs

• Ajoene
• Allicin
• Alliin
• Allyl disulfides
• Allyl sulfides
• Allyl trisulfides
• Cycloalliin
• Cysteine
• Cysteine sulfoxides
• Cystine
• Diallyl sulfides

• Dimethyl sulfides
• Disulfides
• Glutathione
• Methionine
• Methyl sulfides
• Pseudoscordinine
• Scordinine
• Sulfanes
• Tetrathiol
• Thiosulfinates
• Trisulfides

13
(No Transcript)
14
Can Garlic Ward Off the Vampires?

• An interesting study done in Norway in late 1994
  attempted to investigate on this issue
• Since no actual vampires were available for
  study, another type of bloodsucker was used
  insteadleeches
• When given a choice of a hand smeared with garlic
  or a clean one, two thirds of the times the
  leeches went to the garlic
• It take the leeches an average of 14.9 seconds to
  attach themselves and start sucking blood from
  the garlic hand while it take them 44.9 seconds
  on the clean one

15
Aged Garlic-A Potent Antioxidant

• Extracts of fresh garlic that are aged over a
  prolonged period to produce aged garlic extract
  (AGE) contain antioxidant phytochemicals that
  prevent oxidant damage
• Long-term extraction of garlic (up to 20 mo) ages
  the extract, creating antioxidant properties by
  modifying unstable molecules with antioxidant
  activity, such as allicin, and increasing stable
  and highly bioavailable water-soluble
  organosulfur compounds, such as S-allylcysteine
  and S-allylmercaptocysteine

16
Aged Garlic

• Regular intake of aged garlic extract seems to
  reduce damage to the body caused by free
  radicals, according to a study published in
  February in the Journal of Nutrition.
• Free radicalsatoms formed when oxygen interacts
  with certain molecules during normal bodily
  processes or from exposure to pollutants
• Linked to the development of illnesses such as
  cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.

17
Aged Garlic contd

• Smokers were distinguished from nonsmokers
  because they usually have elevated levels of free
  radical activity compared with nonsmokers
• Smokers had 8-iso prostaglandin plasma and urine
  concentrations of 58 percent and 85 percent,
  respectively, higher than nonsmokers
• After two weeks of use of aged garlic extract,
  the concentrations had decreased by 35 percent
  and 48 percent in smokers 29 percent and 37
  percent in nonsmokers

18
Antioxidative Property of Aged Garlic

• In the published experiment, chemically
  induced light emitted from free radicals was used
  to measure oxidative activity, where more light
  shows greater oxidation and less light shows
  reduced oxidation. This experiment is called
  chemiluminescence. AGE inhibited emissions of
  light whereas extracts of raw and heated garlic
  enhanced emissions. Thus, AGE showed
  antioxidative activity whereas other forms of
  garlic showed oxidative activity.

19
Mode of Action

• AGE exerts antioxidant action by scavenging
  reactive oxygen species (ROS)
• It inhibits lipid peroxidation, reducing ischemic
  damage and inhibiting oxidative modification of
  LDL, thus protecting endothelial cells from the
  injury by the oxidized molecules, which
  contributes to atherosclerosis
• It protects DNA against free radical--mediated
  damage and mutations

20
Three Dimensional Structure of Aliinase
21
Can a clove (of garlic) a day keep the doctor
away?
22

• Why does your breath and skin stink after eating
  garlic?
• The sulfur molecules that are created when
  garlic is smashed or chewed are absorbed into the
  bloodstream and lungs and escape through exhaled
  air and perspiration

23
Garlic and Cholesterol

• Overall a 12 reduction in total cholesterol was
  shown over a placebo after only 4 weeks treatment
  
• The largest study so far was conducted in Germany
  where 261 patients were given either garlic
  powder tablets or a placebo. After 12 weeks,
  mean serum cholesterol level dropped by 12 and
  triglycerides dropped by 17 compared to the
  placebo group.

24
Good for your Heartmaybe

• Several other studies show anywhere from 5-13
  reduction in total cholesterol, LDL, and
  triglyceride levels from daily garlic intake
• Yet more studies show no significant change in
  any cholesterol levels from daily garlic
  consumption

25
Garlic and Cancer

• Ancient Egyptians, Indians, and Greeks all used
  garlic externally to treat tumors
• Studies in China and Switzerland link regular
  garlic consumption with decreased risk for
  stomach and colorectal cancers

26
Chemoprotective Properties

• Induction of phase II detoxification enzymes
• Glutathione transferases, quinone reductase,
  epoxide hydrolase
• Daily administration of garlic oil in rats
  significantly increased activity of cytochrome
  P-450 and other biotransformation enzymes

27
More Chemoprevention

• Antioxidant activity cancer prevention
• Free radicals gt lipid peroxidation gt
  carcinogenesis and reduction of endogenous
  antioxidant levels
• Garlic reduces lipid peroxidation and increases
  levels of vitamins C and E, superoxide dismutase,
  catalase, etc.

28
Tumor Growth Inhibition

• Allicin shown to arrest leukemia cells at G2-M
  phase boundary
• Similar arrest in colon cancer cells from DADS
• Garlic extract induces apoptosis in NSCLC cells
• Modulation of apoptosis-associated proteins?
• Diallyl disulfide activates caspase-3 pathway in
  human breast cancer cells

29
Immunostimulation

• Aged garlic extract stimulates native and
  adaptive immune responses
• Increased natural killer (NK) activity
• Induced release of IL-2, TNF-a, IFN-g
• IL-2 gt TH1 cell proliferation
• TH1 cells IFN-g gt TC differentiation
• NKs, TNF-a, and TC cells all destroy cancer cells

30
This just in!

• S-allylmercaptocysteine (SAMC) binds tubulin,
  thereby disrupting mitosis
• SAMC causes MT depolymerization, MT cytoskeleton
  disruption, centrosome fragmentation, and Golgi
  dispersion in interphase cells
• Apoptosis triggered by JNK1 and caspase-3