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.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you were able to enjoy friends and family - we're back in Friday Harbor, the homeland. Enjoying every moment.

The celebration is not over, but I already have to say that this Thanksgiving is the best yet.

Pre Turkey Trot

Mid Turkey Trot (paused to take a weird selfie) - the race literally runs out to my old house and back. Unfortunately, it's behind Dan's noggin.

Post Turkey Trot

I'll bet we get MRI results this week. M.R.I. That's the last time I use those letters until after the weekend. Dan's chomping at the bit already again, gotta go get bundled up for our morning run.

Love to all!

Don't Fear Germs

I'm miserable. But I'm excited.

I've had a temperature for a few days. At first, I just thought it was weird how much my body was hurting. My bones, every single bone in my body was full of needles, and I joked with Dan that maybe I had contracted meningitis. (I love to throw out the impossible and laugh.)

Looking back I had been noticing for the past few weeks a pain in my lungs. A burning, hot, achey sensation that I'm not used to. On Saturday, after I had written my last blog post about my lack of exercise, I became inspired and went to the gym, punched 5k in on the treadmill, and went to town. My goal was to finish the one person race in under 30 minutes. It was a little hard with the burning in my lungs, but I was able to complete it in 29:17 so I felt amazing. I did it!! Then I proceed to hack a lung. The weird part is that the stuff in my lungs isn't getting loose so the coughing didn't last.

The weird thing is that I've been feeling hot for the last week, and achy. But I always find a way to reason it out.

This brings me to yesterday. Finally, so miserable that I couldn't move, so miserable that it was hard to walk, it occurred to me that I should check my temperature. And sure enough, 104 was hitting heavy. When I saw that I had a fever I was thrilled. I leaned over and high fived Dan. Weird right?! But it isn't weird. I had read a few months ago that when you get a fever it stimulates your immune system, including the production and release of t-cells which also happen to love to eat cancer cells.

There are several cases documented of people who get fevers and it causes a regression of their cancers.

Once I learned the fever thing, several months ago, I have been trying to catch germs when people are sick. A long time ago I read a retrospective study about people with glioma. It showed that those who get diagnosed with glioma were described as people who stated they never usually got sick or had broken bones. I thought that was interesting, and I easily fell into that group. So now, I'm trying to rectify it by purposefully enhancing my immune system by putting myself in positions where I can snag a fever. Lucky for me, my nephew is practically always sick and a few weeks ago the sweet little bugger was flaming hot, and coughing. I took deep breaths around him, and hoped for the best, even sipping on a drink he had. I did it discretely. Now, maybe I'm just crazy, but I literally never get sick. I haven't had fever since September of 2012. I specifically remember it because it was right before the most recent brain surgery and I was worried it would interfere with the procedure.

So here I am, chilling with a 100 degree temp, and although achy and physically pretty miserable, my mind is partying. I did it! I earned a temperature and as those pins and needles ravage my body, I imagine my t-cells and cytokines swimming around in my body looking for foreign invaders of bacteria, and viruses, and tumor cells! I will not take aspirin to lower my fever, I will just ride it out. And to explain my reasoning, I sent some articles to my parents and Dan so that they would understand where I'm coming from. When I talked to my mom this morning she was impressed and agreed that she would reevaluate how she handles a fever too.

A fever is a wonderful response, it's like a free housekeeper.

It looks like we've been trying to stop the fevers, when actually that is a detriment to our immune system. This is great to know! Especially if you have kids. There is a lot of information out there showing that people that grow up with fevers (as opposed to people like me who usually never get infected) have a much less probability of getting a malignancy later. Note to self - try to ride it out, but monitor any significant changes.

Anyway, I'm still a little delirious and I don't know what I'm leaving out on here, but hopefully you can get the picture and do a little research on your own.

It's miserable riding it out, I'll admit, but I'm excited about my immune response, so I'll smile through the pain.

Here's a great article from Nursing Times discussing the benefits of not giving patients paracetamo for fever. The next article is a few cases of spontaneous remission after fever. It's fascinating. There are also all kinds of research studies that you can look up online. If you're really curious, look into William Coley's treatments in the 1800's. I hope this random post helps people become less fearful of germs, and viruses and bacteria. Because there is so much that we don't know. Now, I may still be completely insane, and I may be completely off base to want germs, and to initiate fever, but heck - why would doctors try to imitate hyperthermia for cancer patients all over the world as a treatment? (It's a widely accepted form of treatment all over Asia and Europe.) There's something about this concept, and I just got my fever treatment for free! I do love a good deal. :)

Nursing Times (oh crap - they allowed me to read the article once but is now restricted to members)
http://www.nursingtimes.net/does-giving-paracetamol-to-lower-raised-temperature-interfere-with-the-bodys-natural-defence-response-to-infection/5010217.fullarticle

Fever, Cancer Incidence and Spontaneous Remissions 

https://www.samueliinstitute.org/File%20Library/Knowledge%20Center/Publications/meuroimmunmod.pdf 

Immunity over inability: The spontaneous regression of cancer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312698/

Fever Therapy Revisited

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v92/n3/full/6602386a.html