I've heard it's a good antibiotic against borrelia and perhaps other pathogens and parasites.
But Buhner, on an online Q&A, mentions that garlic would merely kill stuff in the intestines and is not "systemic", and would not enter the blood stream. Is this true?
Why is it that we smell like garlic through our pores after ingesting a large amount. Doesn't it have to be "systemic" in order to go from our mouth to our pores?
Posted by Vermont_Lymie (Member # 9780) on :
Garlic, in the form of freeze-dried garlic pills, has really helped me to keep yeast at bay while I have been taking antibiotics for lyme and co-infections. I do not know if it is also affecting/killing other parasites, but I consider it a great supplement to my lyme treatment.
Posted by luvs2ride (Member # 8090) on :
I have H. Pylori and have been treating it with biaxin. Biaxin is noted for giving you a metallic taste but I have always suspected the die off of the bugs was the source of the metallic taste.
This doctor has had me on the PrevPac formula (ammoxy, biaxin & prevacid) for 5 mths now. The metallic taste disappeared long ago. Recently though, I began juicing garlic as much as a bulb daily. It is supposed to be especially effective against H. Pylori. Darned if I didn't get that metallic taste again so it must be true.
Luvs
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- yanivnaced,
there is a big difference in eating garlic raw and eating garlic cooked AND in either one compared to allicin.
I know Buhner is well respected. He may be referring just to garlic itself as a food. He also may have his reasons, from his research. It would be good know more about that.
The molecular weight of the allicin I get is high enough that it should even pass the BBB. In China and some other places garlic/allicin is used as IV combined with other things. It is used for brain infections in that manner or for MSRA in tests in the U.K.
I've used allicin on and off and it clearly reduces my neurolyme startles/seizures when I'm on it. It also seems to help my brain fog and is the only thing that keeps my mouth ulcers under control.
Although, for me, it raises the tinnitus to unbearabale scale, so I just can't stay on it long enough. I'm always working to solve that problem if anyone has any suggestions. I know part of that may be from the hot, stimulating nature of the herb. Some may be herx, but I sure wish my ears would settle down.
I do find that there is a big difference in the quality of the allicin capsules that are available. Very soon after I take mine, my sinuses open up and I remember what it is like to breathe.
The ingredient which gives garlic its distinctive smell is the latest weapon in the battle to beat the hospital "superbug" MRSA.
=========
[ 28. October 2007, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
Posted by luvs2ride (Member # 8090) on :
Keebler,
My husband suffers from tinnitis and sinus congestion. He has taken an Allicin product prescribed by his doctor which does help his sinuses, but I have never heard him say it increased his tinnitis. (He may not be paying attention)
What do you think causes tinnitis and what helps you with your tinnitis?
Thanks to you and Vision for the garlic articles. If I understand them correctly, juicing the garlic may be the most effective as it passes so quickly through the gut. Or, it doesn't really matter as tests have proven even cooked garlic continues to show medicinal benefit.
I am on immune suppressing methotrexate and humira which my doctor just began 1 mth ago and I am very worried about infection of any kind. Much less the MRSA bug. So I have really upped my consumption of garlic with doctor approval. She likes it too because of the chelation effect of garlic.
I'm on probiotics anyway and had not thought about garlic killing good bacteria. I have used it vaginally in the past for yeast infections and it works better than any prescriptions I ever took.
I wouldn't mind having the soap and cream either for cuts and wounds. Are the products available to the general public?
Luvs
Luvs
Posted by hardynaka (Member # 8099) on :
I used the freeze garlic version. It seems helpful for high loads of infections, but in my own kinesiological tests, it doesn't cross the BB barrier. So, it's not systemic like Buhner says.
I'm not saying it's bad. I used it many times, so did my daughter, during worst times of parasitic loads of borrelia, coinfections, GI candida, GI parasites and it worked wonderful.
I suffer though from chronic skin fungal infections for more than a decade (pre-lyme) and allicin never helped on these, even after metal detoxing and not having metals on my toes anymore. So in my case, allicin doesn't go into difficult places like tips of toes where the blood circulation is bad during the cold seasons. Or it doesn't kill these type of fungi, in my case.
Because of high content of sulphur, it also helps detoxing. So maybe a reason that some people feel the brain getting clearer after taking garlic/ allicin is due to sulphur cleansing properties, and not to killing critters in the brain.
My own opinion. Selma
Selma
Posted by Julie4848 (Member # 13065) on :
Biaxin does cause that taste, its not bug die off...Sorry
Julie
Posted by luvs2ride (Member # 8090) on :
Julie,
Not to argue, I'm just wondering why it caused the taste initially but hasn't for quite some time now even though I continue on the drug?
And, why when I began the garlic, the metallic taste returned?
Not arguing, just seriously asking.
How do you know it is the drug and not the die-off?
Thanks for your response.
Luvs
Posted by micul (Member # 6314) on :
The speculation that garlic is not systemic is rediculous. How much systemic penetration is dependant on the allicin content and it's bioflavability.
Freeze dried garlic is just regular garlic.It does not have concentrated allicin, so most of it's benefits will be limited to the intestines.
Posted by hardynaka (Member # 8099) on :
Micul, if garlic is obviously systemic, I wonder where Buhner got his info that garlic is not systemic?
And where did you get yours?
Posted by yanivnaced (Member # 13212) on :
It's still not clear to me how something that is "non-systemic" can saturate the cells in your body's largest organ (your skin).
Ever meet somebody who is taking allicin? You can smell them from up to 10 feet away in a closed room. How could a non-systemic substance can achieve this? Is the odor emanating strictly from the mouth or the exit orifice? Doubtful.
Posted by micul (Member # 6314) on :
Hardy.
Isn't Buhner talking about whole garlic? I don't have time to pull research for it, but I'm sure that you will find it if you look.
It all depends on the allicin content...you don't get that much from whole garlic, and whether or not you get any actual allicin out of a garlic clove is dependant on a few factors.
I could easily say that all the herbs that you took to get better were not systemic...how could you prove that they weren't? Why would they not be systemic? It all depends on how much you take and the quality of the herb.
You believe that freeze dried garlic was not systemic for you because it didn't kill the fungus in your extremities....that's a very poor conclusion, and could easily be explained by hypercoagulation, or the low allicin content of freeze dried garlic...it cannot compare with Allimax or Allimed for allicin content / quality / or bioflavability.
Posted by ChrisBtheLymie (Member # 8916) on :
Hi all.
I just found this thread through a google search and was amazed to find this has been posted yesterday here on Lymenet!
I have been researching allicin for the last week and have decided to give it a try.
Allimed/Allimax are not garlic capsules, they are 100% allicin which has been extracted from garlic, so when Buhner says garlic (Allium sativum) is not systemic, he is probably right, but ALLICIN is systemic. Search the NLM ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ) for "Allicin" and you will find tons of evidence that it is not just confined to the gut - otherwise how would it have such good effects on circulation, heart, etc, etc that have been documented?.
There has been a double-linded placebo controlled trial involving taking capsules, which showed it had a significant effect at reducing the incidence of colds and also shortening the duration of the cold. It was published in the American Medical Journal Alternatives back in 2001.
It is about treating CFS with Allimax/Allimed capsules and it has a few patients who have had good results.
But like you say, it is still early days, but I guess it's worth a try and I will let you know if I notice ANYTHING by taking these capsules.
Posted by BJG (Member # 4723) on :
Hey,
Without seeing this post I just posted a question on Allisure and the study.
If anyone has used Allisure I would like to know.
So, would we really smell like garlic using this? YUKKI
thanks
BJG
Posted by noelle (Member # 13707) on :
I get the metallic taste too, all the time and I only take samento(cat's claw).
I believe it is the bugs dying and releasing heavy metals as they die(the bugs cling to heavy metals in your body to make themselves stronger).
I take chlorella when it happens because it helps soak up the metals!
Also, Garlic chelates metals in your blood stream very well, so that is probably why you get the taste from garlic also, or could be the same reason above, that your killing more spirochetes.
I have herxed from eating fresh garlic cloves. Noelle
Julie,
Not to argue, I'm just wondering why it caused the taste initially but hasn't for quite some time now even though I continue on the drug?
And, why when I began the garlic, the metallic taste returned?
Not arguing, just seriously asking.
How do you know it is the drug and not the die-off?
Thanks for your response.
Luvs
[ 30. October 2007, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: noelle ]
Posted by D Bergy (Member # 9984) on :
I am not sure if anyone has seen this particular report. I have been waiting for some kind of indication of how effective this might be.
Sounds impressive, I would like to see the whole of the study but that will come out later.
D Bergy
Posted by ChrisBtheLymie (Member # 8916) on :
quote:Originally posted by D Bergy: I am not sure if anyone has seen this particular report. I have been waiting for some kind of indication of how effective this might be.
Sounds impressive, I would like to see the whole of the study but that will come out later.
I contacted Allicin International today and asked about this study and was given a draft of the study, but I was told it is nowhere near completed.
To be honest, I am not very impressed.
The patients involved in the study were not just put on Allicin capsules.
I might have got this wrong, but I have read through the draft multiple times and it says each of the "treatment patients" were asked to;
Drink at least 50% their body weight in ounces daily of purified water, not to exceed 100 ounces.
All were given a Blood Type Diet along with a Low Glycemic Diet. Grains, Fruits, and Vegetables according to their blood type.
The seven most allergenic foods were eliminated: 1. wheat, 2.sugar, 3. peanuts, 4. dairy, 5. soy, 6. shellfish, 7 corn.
All treatment patients were asked to eliminating caffeine and sodas, and use herbal teas and drinking purified water with lemon.
Then they were supplemented with; good fats, digestive enzymes, Vitamins/Minerals/Amino Acids, Antioxidants, Fibre, Essential Fatty Acids, probiotics, and last of all, eventually, the Allicin capsules!
It can't be a very valid study if this is the case. How can they say all the improvements were made by the Allicin, when they were taking so many other things at the same time?
This is the summary of the study.
"Study Proposal
Ten Lyme patients who had failed to improve with pharmaceutical treatments involving antibiotics and I.V. treatments were chosen to begin an alternative treatment for chronic Lyme disease. In this pilot Lyme study the ten patients in the natural treatment group will be compared with at least ten other patients of approximately the same degree of illness who continue to receive conventional therapy. Can alternative therapies make a difference in Stage 3 Lyme Disease with a uniform comprehensive natural protocol?"
So it looks like the study was based on a "comprehensive natural protocol" - not just Allicin capsules.
Oh well, I am still going to give it a try. I guess we will need to wait for the study to be finished and published otherwise it is all going to be speculation.
[ 30. October 2007, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: ChrisBtheLymie ]
Posted by johnlyme1 (Member # 7343) on :
For what it is worth, my homepath has used allicidin made by Premier Research Labs for a number of his patients including myself. We all are very happy with what it has done to cut down on the infection load of the lyme infections, yeast and some of the parisite issues. The homeopath uses computerized testing to determine if it is any benifite on a case my case basis.
Allicidin will also start the release of heavey metals, one reason fo the buzzing in the ears at times. He make sure any patients that are using higher doses to be doing simple mop up for metals like chorellia and cilinatro. But again he sets each patient on a personal program for the specific needs.
Posted by ChrisBtheLymie (Member # 8916) on :
quote:Originally posted by visionoftruth: ChrisBtheLymie
Thank you for posting this...
It would seem very relevant that all the other alternative things were being done which I think most of the treatments/alternative we have all tried and used many times in our own personal journeys.
It is hard to say what to speculate..
They really should of done a controlled placebo in this study those that followed the protocol with allicin and those who were given the protocol without allicin(placebo).
This would give much more accurate results.
I completely agree with you there.
The study only involved 10 patients first of all, and it was not double blinded placebo controlled, so it doesn't have much credibility.
I am still going to try the capsules for a while though. I do think they are active ( they have proven to be active in the capsules by the doctor at East London University) but the question is, whether it is active when it enters the body! I guess I will find out soon enough.
Posted by GiGi (Member # 259) on :
We lived garlic, breathed garlic and killed with garlic. That was a few years ago when the Rizoles were not as researched yet, and of course over the years the microbes are evolving and so is treatment. Today the garlic and the rizoles cover just about any bug that we are faced with at present.
My major intake after some antibiotics that left me sick and with little change, was garlic, garlic to titration. When I started to smell, I cut down.
Here is a rather loose note from Klinghardt seminar I attended some years ago - garlic was touched on briefly. The approach is still very much the same: If you kill bugs, you have to expect the fallout of heavy metals - if you treat heavy metals, attention has to be paid to the microbes, all of them - not just bb or co-infections:
" The Global Approach to Bugs with Garlic, etc.
Don't try to pinpoint the specific bugs.
It is estimated through some newer studies that at any given time there are about 400 bowel bacteria that can currently be diagnosed, but science already knows that it estimates the number of different species in our bowel to be closer to 20,000. That means out of some 20,000 bugs, we only can diagnose 400. And the question comes up -- what's the point?
Let's do a global treatment for it. Let's raise specific immunity to the bugs. I use freeze-dried o r g a n i c garlic which is fantastic when it releases its allicin for its global anti-infectious effect.
Let's look at what the metals are doing to the person, and kind of undo that part so the body can do the rest. It's really kind of going back to the old naturopathic principles.
When you move mercury in reverse through the tissues (by DMPS shots, or other agents), you have to give Vitamin E and Garlic as protective agents in the blood, otherwise you get a tremendous amount of oxidative damage in the blood.
Vitamin E protects the system very strongly while mercury is moving out from the system. Vitamin E and garlic protect the red blood cells and the white blood cells while mercury is coming out backwards from the cells to the connective tissue, out in the bloodstream stream and out through the emunctories. The blood needs to be protected. The Vitamin E is doing a great job. I am not totally sure that alpha tocopherol anymore is the right one. That was the one in the literature, but at the time there was nothing else available. There is lots of literature now about gamma tocopherol being the far better agent, and there is a conflict between gamma and alpha. They neutralize each other, and there are the tocotrienols now, so I am not sure about the ultimate..... the research that was done on the protective effects of Vitamin E was done on the cheap over-the-counter alpha tocophereol.
************************************************************************We want to support the toxin removal via the gallbladder and bile duct. And again, the psychological work shines here. Coriander (Cilantro tincture) is incredible for the gallbladder and Taraxacum (dandelion) and Garlic and Bear Garlic (which is a form of European wild garlic) which is fantastic in its properties.
I have a whole lecture on garlic. There is a principle that applies in detox that is very important for you to understand. In the old days, the treatment of syphilis was giving people high doses of mercury. That's because mercury was an effective antibiotic for syphilis. Beethoven died of mercury poisoning from syphilis treatment, that's why he lost his hearing. Mozart died of mercury poisoning, which is not known in the U.S. It is known in Austria, but they kept it as a little small secret, so he could be the hero out there and not be shamed in that way. But it is important. Yes, Mozart didn't die of TB; he died of mercury poisoning.
Some people died because it (mercury) killed the body before it killed the bugs, but just follow me mentally, and sort of know: Imagine you have somebody who is full of amalgam fillings and has high mercury levels in their system, and they get bitten by a Lyme spirochete. What will that do to the Lyme spirochete? It will control it somewhat in the system. Right? The daily dose of mercury coming in the system will suppress the Lyme spirochete.
Now what is going to happen if you remove the amalgam fillings? The Lyme disease suddenly starts burning like a wildfire, and mostly because the Lyme spirochete recover from the mercury poisoning much quicker than the cells of our immune system do. That's a big enigma in our thing, that we do detox and some patients get clearly worse. And it's always the same; they've got Lyme disease or some other infection that was controlled before with mercury.
Suggestion: How about controlling the infection with something else, like some nice herbs instead? The nicest herb that we have found is freeze-dried garlic. There is fantastic literature. There is Dr. Zhang in NY who tracked the treatment of syphilis in China, which was always done with garlic very, very successfully. So we give people high doses of freeze-dried garlic, 3 capsules after each meal, 3-4 times each day. We work slowly up to it. Once side effect is that the worms come out, and giardia and amoebas get killed. We have got all the literature. H. pylori die from it. Most Herpes viruses disappear from the system. So those are the side effect of garlic, that you clean up the gut, but it is also very, very potent in the treatment of Lyme Disease and the other co-infections.
Now, when we struggled a little bit with the issue that the freeze-dried garlic we had available so far was not organic. It was grown in China, and we know about the uncontrolled pollution of herbs and stuff in China, so we now went to an organic source of freeze-dried garlic, which is slightly more expensive, but is fantastic, and I recommend the use of that. Biopure carries it. and it is produced by very close friends of us who constantly check the whole production - from where and how it is grown to here. That is a very important issue, because garlic binds toxins very naturally. It is strong because of its sulfa compounds, and if it's not grown organically, it is already full of stuff we don't want.
Freeze-dried garlic is a very very important co-treatment when you detox somebody to keep the infections at bay that you otherwise may unleash, to give the immune system time to recover. The immune system usually takes between 1-2 years to bounce back, and in that time when we give the freeze-dried goat whey, it has all the transfer factors and the immunity that the mama goat transfers to the baby goat; so we are basically treating the mercury toxic patient like the baby goat that needs immune support, and it needs the knocking down of the bugs with the garlic.
These are two aspects that are overlooked in, I think, pretty much everybody else's detox programs. You cannot do detox without addressing the infections that are in there. It's an ecocystem that you are changing and you can't just do one intervention. You have to treat all the players with it.
Bear garlic, also called European Garlic, versus regular garlic: Regular garlic is what most of the studies were based on. However, in Europe there is a tradition for about 2000 years, the old Celts every spring when bear garlic blooms (it doesn't form a bulb like garlic does), used it. It's a leaf actually that has all the allin in it that then converts to allicin, and the old German tribes used it. Even Caesar wrote a book on that, a small section on it. In spring, the Celts had the habit of tearing out the bear garlic leaves and eating them.
For the old Germans, it was their parasite cleanse in spring - by eating the bear garlic leaves. They also attributed to it that they got supernatural male powers from it - so it was an aphrodisiac as well and gave them a certain sense of supernormal strength.
A friend pharmacist, did a comparative study on the ingredients and found on a per gram basis, there is more alliin, which is the precursor, there's more alliin and allinase in garlic. Alliin is the active, the holy substance in there. Then the moment you chew it, the enzyme that is released in the cell wall of the allinase, and it converts alliin into allicin. Allicin is the most potent plant anti-microbial agent ever studied. So bear garlic has more of that in it.
The trouble with bear garlic: A couple of papers were published by Dr. K. in Germany and then it became the most popular wild plant in Germany, already with the effect that in only 12 years, the amount has been truly decimated. It only grows naturally, you can't cultivate it in farms. It has to grow by riverbanks. So it's not sustainable at the current rate of use.
Shift to the garlic that can be gown in farms organically.
Garlic is a medicine. Let's not tell anybody, because at the rate we are going with use of herbs, mushrooms, chapparal being taken away, etc., as soon as a study is published showing medicinal effects, ........one day we will not be allowed to eat garlic anymore, or eggs, or drink milk because it's turned into medicine............................
Most studies are done in Eastern countries - for obvious reasons."
Today, a very simple method to take the garlic is --
a half a cup of warm water, empty the capsules of the freeze dried garlic into it, shake gently a second or two, let rest a minute or two, and then drink it. It's almost like eating a steak with lots of garlic on it......
Take care.
Sharing what I learned and what got me well.
Posted by yanivnaced (Member # 13212) on :
I checked www.allicin.com and it's probably true that they didn't find allicin in blood or urine samples.
But it looks like a typical scientific study looking for the "silver bullet". So maybe it's not the compound Allicin that is killing off systemic pathogens. It's probably some of the other thousands of yet undiscovered compounds in garlic that survive the pH in the gut and do get absorbed systemically.
As per Gigi's post, history speaks volumes - there is obviously a reason why folks have used this herb over the millenia.
Posted by GiGi (Member # 259) on :
* QAI certified raw organic garlic, Advanced Sublimation Technology. 26,800 ppm alliin content (industry standard for high potency is 10,000 ppm). * Historical data: * First recorded 5000 BC - Sumerians of Mesopotamia. * Hippocrates 400 BC - infections, digestive problems and cancer. * Dioscorides 100 BC - infections, clearing arteries and Leprosy. * Louis Pasteur 1858 - scientific proof that garlic kills germs. * Known in WWII as the "Russian Penicillin".
The medicinal properties of fresh garlic have been known for centuries and it has been the mainstay `anti-infective' of numerous civilications through the ages.
The problem that has arisen in presenting garlic as a supplement is the inherent instability of the initial active substance, allicin, which is created when a clove of garlic is crushed.
Allicin is not found, as such, within the garlic clove, instead, when the clove is crushed, allicin is formed instantaneously from the interaction of an enzyme called alliinase on a precursor of allicin called alliin.
By selecting the highest quality of garlic cloves, rich in alliin and alliinase, and then gently freeze-drying them, a concentrated powder is produced which only releases the prime active allicin component when ingested and rehydrated , i.e. all of the allicin is released within the gastrointestinal tract. This is exactly how the highest possible potency garlic is presented as a concentrate with all of the active components intact,
This way it is an active concentrate of freeze-dried garlic rich in alliin and alliinase, which releases high levels of allicin directly in the gut when ingested and rehydrated, i.e. all of the allicin is released within the gastrointestinal tract.
We take the garlic after a meal.
Think that's enough about garlic.
Take care.
Am not sure if I want to continue sharing.
Posted by johnlyme1 (Member # 7343) on :
I want to know why then when taking liquid allicidin that I had die off of lyme when I took it during my 28day herx cycle. At the end of my treatment this was all that I was using. This was my personal experience and a couple of others from WI were have good results also - It tested so effective on the transdermal testing we went through and it was very helpful for us. What Works for one, may not work for others but we have a couple here that really like it.
Posted by GiGi (Member # 259) on :
Johnlyme1, absolutely, I am sure they all work in different ways. I don't think anyone is saying here that garlic does not work.
However, for me, it was the main antimicrobial. There were no Samentos, Cumandas, Banderols, or Buhners with research into Lyme. I lived with garlic for close to 2 years. Whenever I tested positive with ART, just like you were tested, I took it again and again, usually 9 capsules a day. When the odor became noticable to others, I cut back. Titration level is enough.
Glad it is working for you too.
Take care.
Posted by johnlyme1 (Member # 7343) on :
I don't put anything into my body for treatment unless it is examined by my homeopathic doc. He uses a computerized testing device for what some would call muscle testing.
We also test out for any downfall or reactivity of anything that I ues and see what areas might need to be corrected. Everyone's internal enviroment is different. As in the case of garlic, yes it "may" have the potential to take out some good microbs too, we check for that kind of situation and I have not seen anything for myself.
This is where we have seen the benifit and also tested out while having the herxing as to what was causing it. I have just seen too much positive data from his colletion of information, results from others who have seen him, and personal results.
If I were to make any kind of blanket statement,on any of the possiblities of taking something it would be: The benifit that I have seen, in using someone who is very good with ART, muscle testing or transdemal testing, has out weighed many of the suggestion that came from my LLMD, or popular opinion of good effects of many supplimentations. We just have no idea of what something is going to do when we take it. We hope that it is going to correct this or that. The methods that I have been working with has been so much better that just guessing. For what its worth, my LLMD will did not use any meds that tested out with high reactivity to my system, it was just not worth the risk.
I wish all of use had the opporttunity to work with someone who was really good in this area of testing. It would be in my opinion, a way to make a better informed decision.
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