Can garlic really help prevent cancer? Cancer used to be a rare disease only afflicting certain population and having only fewer kinds, but as the world of science continues to grow and become modern, more types were discovered. The cells in our body usually follow a definite path and that is cell growth, division and dying. This orderly pattern does not occur in cancer cells wherein instead of dying, they continue to grow and divide thus invading also other organs in the body.
Garlic was found to be possibly helpful in fighting cancer during the 1950’s, wherein they tried to inject allicin, a substance seen in garlic, into mice suffering from cancer. Those mice which were injected with the said chemical spent another six months of life, whereas those which did not receive any only had two months and soon died of the illness.
Many substances found in garlic seem to be the answer for its ability to help fight cancer, but this particular one may do most of the work, and that is allyl sulfur. It is said that this substance helps slow down the growth of cancer cells. As we all know, our body is composed of millions of cells and each of them undergoes cell division. The action of allyl sulfur is to make the cells defenseless against the stress produced by products of cell division. Unlike normal cells, cell division of cancer cells occurs very quickly, thus creating more stress than the normal ones. Therefore, the damage that allyl sulfur compound puts on cancer cells is greater than it does with the normal cells. It has also been found out that garlic is mostly effective against stomach and prostate cancer.
This information was compiled from different resources and still a lot about garlic has to be studied. Having said that, there is actually no harm in trying to consume garlic as much as you want, just like eating your favorite fruit or vegetable. The positive effects of garlic definitely outweigh the negative ones, if there is any.