Garlic as Antibiotic & Diets

Somedays I dink around on the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. I don't always read about cancer stuff, though. Yesterday I found a cool study showing the synergistic effects of honey and garlic in treating common bacteria like Staph, E. coli, and Salmonella. I was researching treatments for my persistent lung infection (remember that fever I was so excited about?). Anyway, I love finding fun new ways to treat myself, or take care of myself. A few weeks ago my lungs started burning - no sore throat though. And the more I did, the worse it got. I tried running out the sickness (not my brightest idea), and waiting it out. I thought about getting antibiotics, but I haven't taken them since high school. Pharma-antibiotics are amazing, and necessary, but I still like to avoid them at all cost because of the fact that they kill all the good bacteria in your gut, and your gut is not only important for digestion, but it's responsible for 70% of your immune system. I don't want to kill all my good bacteria, so I like to use whole food antibiotics like garlic. I probably sound crazy, but there is actual proof that the allicin and DAS in garlic (most effective when minced and set out for 10-15 minutes) is antibiotic. There's a pretty cool excerpt below, demonstrating some of the proof. There is a link at the bottom to read the study in its entirety. If you head to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov you can find much more (add words like "garlic", "xdiallyl sulfide", "allicin", "antimicrobial", etc.). Anyway, I started dosing heavily with garlic, two minced cloves every two hours, along with the juice of a head of garlic, 6 lemons, and 8-10 inches of ginger, and low and behold the infection is going away. My cough is almost gone, and I feel much better. Some people don't believe that foods can really make that much of a difference in health, and sometimes I believe them, but that garlic is seriously amazing. I wish food didn't matter, but it does. I would much rather have been eating two cookies every two hours but I can guarantee that there's no antimicrobial benefits from the deserts I like to eat.

Background 

In Ethiopia, people use A. mellipodae honey and garlic mixture to treat different types of diseases such as cold, cough, asthma, diarrhea and respiratory infections. But still there is no any scientific report about the synergic effect of any type of honey and garlic extract. People use A. mellipodaehoney and garlic in various combinations, there is no any scientific report about the synergic effect of these substances. Therefore, there is a need to investigate synergic antimicrobial effect of A. mellipodae honey and garlic mixture.

Research frontiers 

This finding strongly supports the claim of the local community to use the combination of A. mellipodae honey and garlic for the treatment of different pathogenic bacterial infections. So, garlic in combination with A. mellipodae honey can serve as alternative natural antimicrobial drug for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. Further in vivo study is recommended to come up with a comprehensive conclusion.

Related reports 

There are different reports on the separate issues of antimicrobial effects on honey and garlic. However, a report on the synergistic effect of honey and garlic is scarce. This finding fills this research gap and may help base information for further in vivo research.

Innovations and breakthroughs 

The finding of the study paves a way to consider and acknowledge the traditional knowledge for the treatment of infectious diseases using natural resources like honey and garlic.

Applications 

Garlic in combination with A. mellipodae honey can be used as antimicrobial agent to different pathogenic bacteria. As recommended by the author it needs further validation and then it would be important for the community as it is routinely used as food.

Peer review 

This is a very good finding in which the author investigated the synergistic antimicrobial activity of mixture of garlic extract and A. mellipodae honey against pathogenic bacteria. The results are interesting that garlic in combination with A. mellipodae honey can serve as alternative natural antimicrobial drug for the treatment of pathogenic bacterial infections. - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3757282/

The other fun study I found talks about the effects of diet and neurological and non-neurological diseases. It was co-authored by Seyfriend (remember him, the professor from Boston College - the ketogenic diet for cancer guy?). Check this out.....it's exactly my hypothesis, even though it wasn't specifically regarding cancer.

Abstract

Background

Diet therapies including calorie restriction, ketogenic diets, and fish-oil supplementation have been used to improve health and to treat a variety of neurological and non-neurological diseases.

Methods

We investigated the effects of three diets on circulating plasma metabolites (glucose and β-hydroxybutyrate), hormones (insulin and adiponectin), and lipids over a 32-day period in C57BL/6J mice. The diets evaluated included a standard rodent diet (SD), a ketogenic diet (KD), and a standard rodent diet supplemented with fish-oil (FO). Each diet was administered in either unrestricted (UR) or restricted (R) amounts to reduce body weight by 20%.

Results

The KD-UR increased body weight and glucose levels and promoted a hyperlipidemic profile [the unrestricted ketogenic diet lead to increased sugar and fat in the blood, along with weight gain], whereas the FO-UR decreased body weight and glucose levels and promoted a normolipidemic profile, compared to the SD-UR. When administered in restricted amounts, all three diets produced a similar plasma metabolite profile, which included decreased glucose levels and a normolipidemic profile. Linear regression analysis showed that circulating glucose most strongly predicted body weight and triglyceride levels, whereas calorie intake moderately predicted glucose levels and strongly predicted ketone body levels.

Conclusions

These results suggest that biomarkers of health can be improved when diets are consumed in restricted amounts, regardless of macronutrient composition. - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047269/

Okay so, do you see my contradiction here? At first I say that food does matter because it can kill pathogens, then I kinda say that as long as you're calorically restricting, macronutrients don't really matter when it comes to health. You pull up different studies and you'll get contradictory messages - or at least you could argue different interpretations of the second study. But are they mutually exclusive, these two reports? Absolutely not. They can both be true. One is talking about natural chemical properties in food killing bad bacteria, and the other is talking about how an unrestricted diet high in fish oil, although high fat, normalizes body fat and lipid profiles, promotes weight loss, and lowers circulating blood glucose, unlike UR-SD and UR-KD. Or, if you want to eat a Standard (American) Diet, or a Ketogenic Diet, you'd better restrict your calories by 20% if you don't want to have negative health effects. Macronutrients DO matter, but at least you have options. 

This is what I do when I'm bored. Obviously I should go munch on more garlic so I can reenter society. (I have voluntarily quarantined myself.) One more day and I'll try running again - better do it outside though because I probably reek like a big fat garlic clove.