The aroma of love...

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The aroma of love...

Synopsis Transcript

Garlic (Allium sativum), has been used for medicinal purposes for the past 5,000 years, making it one of the oldest medicinal plants known to man.

Recent work conducted at the prestigious Chelsea & Westminster Hospital in London, showed that Allicin, garlic's active agent, could "stimulate" the production of NOS (nitric oxide synthase) which is an enzyme closely involved with male erectile dysfunction. It's suggested that the more NOS you can produce, the more likely you are to get improved blood flow to the groin and enhance staying power.

Join Peter Josling for a live streamed webchat from 2:00pm to 2:30pm, on Thursday 8th September as he discusses how garlic can help rebalance your general well-being and where to look for the best natural aids.

Presenter: Murray Norton (MN) Guest: Peter Josling (PJ)

MN:	Hello and welcome to today's webchat. Now if I was to tell you that what I'm holding in my hand could cure you of arthritis, slow down the ageing process, cure the common cold, and help you in bed gentlemen, then you'd be very interested in what's here. What is it? It's nothing more than just a little, simple bulb of garlic, in fact a whole clove of it there.

	You might have to eat a little bit more of it than I'm holding at the moment however that could be the cure to all ills as we know it. So, this is what we're looking at, garlic today, and joining me here in the studio the author of a book called 'Allicin The Heart Of Garlic' which is a substance you will find in garlic, and that's written by Peter Josling.

	Now Peter is joining us here in the studio. Peter very good to see you, thank you very much indeed for coming in and we're going to be talking about garlic for the next half an hour. Peter good to have you with us. Thanks very much indeed for joining us.
PJ:	Thank you for inviting me
MN:	Its amazing because this little simple bulb of garlic seems to be the cure of all ills, and yet we've known about it for oh, only the last five thousand years

PJ:	Thats right. The wonderful thing about garlic is that it has the history that goes back into Ancient Egypt, and even in those days the ruling Egyptians knew something in the garlic was able to prevent infectious diseases, could keep people healthy and happy, and of course at the same time it would add flavour to their food. So, yes we've known about garlic for centuries and since that day really every culture in the world has used garlic both as a food and as a medicine.
MN:	How do we know actually that the Ancient Egyptians revered garlic so much?
PJ:	Well there's a very famous medical papyrus called 'The Codex Evers' which lists twenty two popular remedies of the day which all included garlic as either the main ingredient or one of the ingredients used to treat ills of that day, and that would cover everything from things like asthma, digestive diseases, skin conditions, infectious organisms, and boosting the immune system, although in those days they had no idea what an immune system was, but they knew that something in the garlic could protect and prevent people from becoming ill.
MN:	It was actually even left in Tutan Karmoon's tomb, is that right?
PJ:	That's right
MN:	In 1922 when Howard Carter discovered it, there was garlic there. Is that right?
PJ:	That's right. When Howard Carter broke in to the tomb of Tutan Karmoon he found six heads of garlic. I mean that is a head of garlic, and basically it was given to Tutan Karmoon as a form of good luck. So it was meant to give him good luck in the after life, so it's got a great history.
MN:	It's got a great history. In terms of its medical claims and there are a great many of them within the book which you wrote, we've got a question just come in, Fraser thank you very much for your question, the first one up today. "I've read that garlic is effective against SARS and MRSA. It sounds a bit far fetched to be true. Is it true?"
PJ:	Actually its true in part. MRSA is methicillin-resistant staph aureus that we're all reading about at the moment in our hospitals. We've produced an extract from garlic which is this Allicin material, and in the last two or three years it's been tested against various strains of MRSA and its proven very effective indeed, in fact we had a publication at the American Society of Microbiology just last month where there were two case histories presented of people who had MRSA and they were basically treated with Allicin capsules, liquids and creams, and that basically cured their MRSA, so yes in that respect. SARS is a little bit more difficult, being a viral condition. We haven't managed to see any activity against the SARS virus with garlic at the moment, but we'll keep trying on that one.
MN:	Ok, Allicin you've mentioned there and I mentioned it's 'Allicin The Heart Of Garlic' is the title of the book. We'll briefly go through what Allicin is 'cos Allicin is not garlic although it is garlic, it's within the garlic, it's in here somewhere isn't it?

PJ:	Yes that's right. This as we said is a head of garlic, or a bulb of garlic, but you can break that up into cloves. Each garlic bulb has about, between eight and twenty cloves in it. Now there's no Allicin in this garlic at the moment, ok there's no Allicin in here at all. What you have to do is you have to either, cut, crush, cook, boil, chop, stir fry or process your garlic to start making Allicin. So in the clove there are actually two other chemicals which come together when you crush the garlic and the first chemical they produce is this Allicin material. Now Allicin up until very recently has been very unstable, so it's been very, very difficult to actually crush it and remove it from the garlic, but in recent years that's now been achieved. So now we can actually produce products that actually contain real, stabilised Allicin, and that's why in the last few months the research has been done on things like the common cold and MRSA and all sorts of other infectious diseases, and the Allicin does appear to kill these bugs which is really good news.
MN:	Ok, alright, that's the brief tour guide of Allicin. Thank you very much indeed to Valerie, she wants to know, she says "I'm 17, I've suffered with acne for years, will garlic help? I'll try anything," and I'm guessing that in those angst of teenage years, acne is prevalent in teenagers more than any other.
PJ:	Very much so yeah, and obviously most people think that's it's an overproduction of grease from the sebaceous glands which is true. But, what often happens with things like acne is that those pimples act as a magnet for bacterial infection, and it's been proven many, many times in clinical trials that acne sufferers attract a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus, so consequently if you don't use a product that can kill the bacteria you're not really going to help the underlying acne very much. The nice thing about garlic and in specifically Allicin, is that it kills the infection very, very quickly, so I would certainly encourage Valerie to eat more garlic in her diet, but also if she can get hold of a product like Allimax Cream for example, then obviously all you've got to do then is massage that onto the pimples and the Allicin in the cream will kill the infection, and that will then allow the acne to heal a little bit more naturally. So it's well worth trying.
MN:	Will she stink of garlic? Sorry Valerie but I think it's an important thing you'll need to know if indeed you are smelling of garlic by rubbing it into your face.
PJ:	If she eats lots of raw garlic then yes, you will end up stinking, but certainly the Allicin cream I mentioned has a perfume in it so that covers up the smell of the Allicin, so its highly unlikely that she's going to notice, and even more unlikely that any boyfriends or friends will notice either.
MN:	Alright Valerie, there's your answer. The Allicin Cream is obviously the answer for you, and we've got another question from face to feet if you like, Barry. Thank you Barry for this, "I've got Athlete's Foot," Athlete's Foot I think it is, or maybe its Athlete's Feet if it's plural, "I can't get rid of it. My Nan says I should use garlic. Is she right or is she completely batty?"
PJ:	Well you might think that this is an old wives tale, but it's actually quite right. His Nan is a clever lady. Again Athlete's Foot is an infection, but it's a fungal infection, ok, and that's what causes the itchiness between the toes, and the flaking of the skin. It's a fungal infection, and I know from my own experience that garlic is very, very good at killing fungal infections like Candida, and Athlete's Foot and this sort of thing. So I would say yes you need to get the cloves out, cut them in half, rub them in between your toes, or again you can use the Allimax Cream if you think that's a lot easier, which it probably is.
MN:	Thank you Barry for the question there. There you go, use the cream or rub the garlic between your toes. Blimey, well it will stop your feet smelling of smelly socks wouldn't it. There's a genuinely good question that's come in and it's, if it's so good at curing so many ills, and let's face it this book does claim that it does cure an awful lot of ills, why is it not being prescribed by doctors Peter?
PJ:	Well I have to tell you that it is actually.
MN:	Well that's good news.
PJ:	In America it's being prescribed by doctors. In the UK certain doctors are recommending that their patients should use products like Allimax because they do seem to have this ability to get rid of infections. It will be a good number of years I think before there's any medicinal license affected because being a natural compound, it comes from fresh garlic after all, it has to cross a lot of hurdles to get a registration. One of the most important is safety and toxicology. Now nobody as far as I'm aware has ever died from eating too much garlic so at least we can say pretty confidently that the garlic is not going to kill you, it's only going to help you really. So, I think and safety and toxicology studies will be quite straight forward. But yes I think one day it may happen and in fact in some of our European countries, our partners in Germany, and in Holland, and in, I think it's Denmark, it is actually a prescribable compound. You can get garlic products prescribed for things like treating blood pressure and cholesterol believe it or not. Now if they don't work then obviously you come back and you get a drug. So you know we haven't really caught up with some of our European neighbours in this respect yet.
MN:	So they're already looking more forward thinkingly at garlic than maybe we are in the UK?
PJ:	Absolutely, yes. Well that's because mainland Europe has a very long tradition and long history of using herbal treatments and plant medicines. St John's work for example, has been used as an anti-depressant for centuries, and garlic has traditionally been used across Europe for centuries.
MN:	Alright, talking about being across Europe for centuries, my mind is cast if you like towards the Mediterranean gentlemen that all the ladies from the UK seem to be swooning for time and time again and Steve wants to know, Steve thanks for your question, sorry you're having a problem Steve, "Will eating garlic improve my luck with the ladies?"

PJ:	That's a good question. There are two answers to this really. I think the expression is 'If you eat garlic alone then you will stay alone' because you will stink of garlic and I don't think many ladies are going to want to come too near you. But, interestingly in the last few years we've learnt that men who have an erectile problem for example, which is much more common than we might think, they lack an enzyme called Nitric Oxide Synthase and this enzyme is absolutely vital in maintaining a full, proper circulation to the relevant area, and interestingly Allicin in particular appears to be able to stimulate the production of this enzyme. So technically it could be very helpful for men who have an erection problem in improving the quality of blood supply to the organ etc. And of course the old adage is that it's the food of lovers, so therefore if you both eat it neither of you are going to notice the smell believe me.
MN:	Yes, I never quite worked out why it's the food of lovers but it obviously is.
PJ:	Well there's a good story there which I can go into if you want me to, but very briefly it was a Greek Goddess called Circe who was being pursued by Odysseus and she didn't really like him very much so she thought I'll invite him round for dinner and cook him a really heavily laden garlic meal, and that will put him off and he won't want to come near me. Unfortunately he fell in love with the smell of garlic, ate all the food and was desperately in love with Circe, and so they ended up getting married.
MN:	There you go Steve, there's your answer, to fall in love with that. The follow up question coming in from that, Ben wants to know "Can garlic really help with problems for men downstairs" which I think we're half way through answering. "If so, is it better than taking something like Viagra?" Now there's a meaty subject.
PJ:	That's a meaty subject, yeah. It's never going to be as effective as a drug like Viagra. I mean Viagra as we understand is very effective and very potent, but of course it was discovered by accident. It was a cardio-vascular drug for your heart. I think garlic will be an alternative, but it would never be quite as effective. It certainly can stimulate the blood supply to the groin and to the organ, so its well worth a try for anyone who's a little bit concerned about that type of condition, but the nice thing about garlic is it works in lots of other ways, so not only will it improve circulation, it'll improve your immune system, it'll prevent you from getting coughs and colds and that sort of thing. All of that means that the body is being treated holistically, and that means that you're going to get benefits to all of your body systems not just you know the blood supply to the penis.
MN:	Ok, lot of interest in all of this, Ben thank you for your question. Greg, thank you for yours as well. Greg wants to know, he went to the doctor and the doctor prescribed or mentioned Viagra, but didn't mention garlic at all, and you're just wondering is it proven at all?
PJ:	Doesn't really surprise me because garlic is one of those things that people feel they know everything about. Now it's only in the last couple of years that we've done the research to show that this enzyme Nitric Oxide Synthase, is vital for a healthy erection system. So you know only small numbers of trials have been done so far, so we need to get that knowledge out to people, and that's why this type of programme can help in encouraging doctors to suggest that they can use a nice, safe, natural alternative if people don't want to go for the pharmaceutical drugs.
MN:	Could you use both?
PJ:	Of course, yeah, no reason whatsoever why you couldn't.
MN:	No extra side effects from using the garlic?
PJ:	No.
MN:	It just can enhance the "
PJ:	Well what we would say is that you would get a synergistic activity. I mean we've proven already in many surveys that garlic adds benefit to lots of pharmaceutical drugs. Blood pressure drugs for example work a bit more effectively when you take garlic at the same time, so do antibiotics. So I see no reason why the garlic would not help the situation if you added it into something like Viagra.
MN:	A doctor with a question, thank you Doctor David Douglas who's watching us on line, wants to know is there any evidence that garlic will increase your sperm count?
PJ:	As far as I'm aware there's no published evidence to suggest it will affect sperm count at all. Having said that, obviously we know that products like Allimax can improve the immune system, and the cardiovascular system and the central nervous system basically, so if your body's fitter and healthier then technically its not difficult to understand that you may well have an improvement in sperm count, but certainly nothings been published on it.
MN:	I'm guessing as well, I mean that I happen to know that garlic contains, is it cellinium? It contains zinc...
PJ:	Cellinium, zinc, magnesium, iron...
MN:	They're very good in adding to sperm count anyway.
PJ:	Absolutely right, yeah. That's right.
MN:	A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
PJ:	The garlic you have in your hand is actually Argentinean garlic because it's so pure, white.
MN:	What's the difference then? That's Argentinean garlic.

PJ:	That's Argentinean because it's so white. The normal garlic that you find summer time up till about, well now, is usually Spanish garlic. We get most of our garlic from Spain because they have such an elongated season, because they get very good weather over there. We get some French garlic, although the French tend to keep most of their own garlic for themselves. They're a bit selfish like that, and the Spanish garlic is a variety that's much more pink, it's much more purple than that so you can tell them apart immediately.
MN:	And there is some garlic grown in the UK isn't there?
PJ:	There is, yes. The Isle of Wight is the centre for garlic growing in the UK. In fact there's even a Garlic Festival there every year to celebrate the new crop of garlic. In fact where I live down in a sleepy little village in East Sussex called Catsfield, we have a local grower of garlic as well and each year we celebrate the Catsfield garlic crop, and that usually happens first or second week in July. So, yes garlic's grown all over the UK.
MN:	Alright, we had another question about using drugs together with garlic as well. I'm assuming that you know you don't really need to tell the doctor that you're taking garlic supplements?
PJ:	No, there is a body of thought in the medical community that you should tell doctors if you're on blood thinning drugs like Worferin for example or Clopidogrel, but I know from personal experience that you can add in good quality garlic supplements without any effect on your blood clotting times whatsoever. So that really is a bit of a myth. There's really no published evidence to suggest that there's an interaction between those blood thinning drugs and garlic. You can certainly take it with all blood pressure drugs, cholesterol lowering drugs, antibiotics, and as we mentioned there's lots of synergy between them.
MN:	Right, thank you Danny for that question. A question from Gabrielle, Gabriella would like to know, "There are plenty of garlic supplements on the shelves, which ones are good and which ones aren't, or all they all as good as each other?"
PJ:	No, no there's a big difference to be honest. Believe it or not the garlic technology world has moved on dramatically in the last three or four years. If you go into a chemist store you'll see hundreds of garlic supplements. They are very, very popular. Unfortunately most of them are made from a technology that is twenty five to thirty years old, and we've moved on since then. So what you really need to look out for are products like Allimax which is a guaranteed 100% yield of this Allicin material. Now these are relatively new and they are made in a completely different hi-tech way. Older garlic supplements are either garlic powders, or garlic oils, or aged garlic extracts, and the vast majority of those rely on your body making Allicin when you've swallowed their tablets or capsules. Unfortunately what they don't tell you is that nine times out of ten that doesn't happen because your stomach acid destroys the enzyme that's absolutely vital for producing the Allicin as you swallow those products.
MN:	You can see why it's confusing for consumers then can't you?
PJ:	Absolutely. It's very confusing because even the labelling and the packaging leads the consumer to believe that they will be getting Allicin from those products. So really its products like Allimax which is very different. It is real Allicin, and that's proven by things like high pressure liquid chromatography, mass spectroscopy, all very modern chemical techniques.
MN:	Lots of things that I'm going blank at.
PJ:	It just proves that these newer products do contain this real Allicin material, and that's why we're getting magnificent results on killing bacteria, virus and fungal infection.
MN:	Right, ok, well Gabrielle thank you very much for that. There's Gordon has come in with a question. Gordon, thank you very much indeed for your question, good luck on the back packing. He's going back packing for six months and he's going to South America, and what supplements would you recommend for him to take with him if he's going off for six months, and goodness knows where you're going, but...
PJ:	Quite interesting really. I mean in South America of course you'll have access to a whole pharmacy of plants that can be used for treating every condition that he's likely to suffer from, but I guess what he's looking for is something that's easy to slip into the back pack. I would definitely take a product like Allimax with you because as soon as you go to any foreign land then the food that you eat is rather different to what you're used to in the UK. That means that your digestive system can easily get upset. There are different types of bacteria in all these countries, different types of viruses, so certainly an Allicin product like Allimax will be my first choice. I'd also take some ginger and probably some ginko as well because all of those products help to improve your immunity to infection, and that's the thing that's most likely to happen when he's travelling throughout South America.
MN:	I've been in Central America and mosquitoes are a thing, and they certainly are in South America as well. I've heard that garlic and mosquitoes, they don't like each other do they?
PJ:	They don't. This is interesting, this is where the mosquito as I'm sure you know has a sense of smell, which is a thousand to ten thousand times greater than yours or mine. So they can smell garlic from a long, long way away, and they can also detect it, taste it very easily too. So the idea is that if you eat lots and lots of fresh garlic, or you take a good quality garlic supplement that you will inevitably sweat out certain sulphur chemicals from the garlic, and if the mosquito comes in to feed it will immediately realise that you've been taking garlic and fly off somewhere else and bite somebody else. Now whether that stops you from getting bitten or not, not really sure yet but certainly it seems to be that people who take plenty of garlic, or take these good quality supplements don't seem to get bitten when they go on holiday.
MN:	That's got to be an added bonus hasn't it?
PJ:	Definitely, yes.
MN:	Jackie wants to know, powder, capsules or liquid, there's a question for you. Is it available in cream if you don't want to take it orally?
PJ:	Yes it is, there's a cream formula. Allimax Cream is available directly from the manufacturer, there's powdered capsules and there is a liquid. You can actually put the liquid really into any base that you like. I mean it goes very well in Aloe Vera gel. You can put it into any cream that you like to use on a regular basis, and obviously some people prefer to use creams rather than liquids or take pills.
MN:	I just wanted to mention garlic for a second, get back to some basics here because we mentioned there's Allicin here once you chop or crush the stuff so presumably you could happily gnaw away on this to get everything you need without the supplements. Why on earth would we need to take the supplements and go and pay more money for the supplements?
PJ:	Well the crucial thing is when you cut or crush the garlic you do produce this Allicin material.
MN:	Which is why it smells?
PJ:	Yes, but as soon as you produce that Allicin you haven't stabilised it so it disappears before you can do anything with it. Now having said that, populations that eat large amounts of garlic in their diet like the French, the Italians, the Greek, people like that, they do have lower rates of heart disease and lower rates of stomach and oesophageal cancer, and one of the reasons is that they do eat lots and lots of garlic. You know there are other reasons as well like red wine, and olive oil and fresh fruit and vegetables, but if you don't stabilise the Allicin it disappears very quickly and changes into lots of other sulphur compounds. So the big advantage that products like Allimax have, are that they actually contain stabilised Allicin extracts, and that's the first time it's ever been available. So that's why these products are very, very different to other garlic supplements that you may have used in the past.
MN:	Right, questions still coming in, thank you very much indeed for them. Rick wants to know, he says "I love garlic," I love garlic too. Whether people love you when you've had garlic is a different matter. Unfortunately he's become very allergic to garlic and he wants to know "If garlic is supposed to be good for your health, but will garlic supplements affect my allergies?"
PJ:	It's an interesting question because you know I've been involved with garlic for many years now, and I've probably met or talked to about five people over fifteen years who are allergic to garlic in any form whatsoever, even a garlic dressing or just smearing a clove of garlic around a salad bowl. They can't take it, they react. Nine times out of ten those people can take a garlic supplement so that's probably the easy answer is to try the supplement, but again you can be sensitive to it. It's the sulphur and sulphur is one of these chemicals that people can be sensitive to, but it's really quite rare so I'd say they should try it out and see what he thinks.
MN:	See what happens is the way forward, but rarity you're saying.
PJ:	Very rare, yeah!
MN:	Michael has joined us on line, wants to know "Can you have too much garlic in your diet?" You were mentioning this earlier on, I'm just going to ask with the supplements, can you overdo the supplements?
PJ:	No, not really. I don't think you can have too much garlic. I mean the more you eat the more you'll smell basically. That is the only down side of eating lots of garlic in your diet.
MN:	What about the supplements?
PJ:	The supplements, well we've just completed some acute toxicology and pharmacology studies, and it appears that a product like Allimax for example you could take something like, I think its 1,777 capsules every single day in one go for about six months before anything deleterious would happen to you. So they really are very safe. The only problem with eating too much garlic is that you will smell for a couple of days afterwards, so the supplements are an obvious alternative.
MN:	Right. Obviously garlic, we've been talking about its medicinal properties quite a lot, but of course it's included as part of our natural diet and included as part of our cooking diet. Sally's been on line as well, wants to know "Does cooking garlic lose its effectiveness?"
PJ:	Well from a medicinal point of view yes it does. If you cook the garlic obviously you start that chemical reaction, you destroy the Allicin, but I mean we've been cooking with garlic for thousands of years. Please don't stop Sally you know please carry on because it adds wonderful flavour to the food. You know I think most of the people on this web cast this afternoon are probably garlic lovers so please, please eat more because it's really good for you, nothing wrong with eating it.
MN:	Alright, Mark wants to know "I'm a keen cook, there are many different types of garlic from several countries. Are they different strengths?" I mean the Argentinean one is the one we've got here, the white one, but some garlic is stronger than others.
PJ:	It's quite interesting. Virtually every country in the world grows garlic, just about every country and there are minor differences between the commercial varieties. So what you have in your hand there was Allium Sativum Lin which is the commercial brand if you like, the commercial variety, and that doesn't really vary very much depending on whether you get it from France, or Italy, or America or Britain. But there are, something like two hundred different varieties of garlic, and in particular America, they love different varieties that you can get hard necks, soft necks, you can get very purple pink ones. You can get an elephant garlic which is the size of a fist.
MN:	I've seen one of those.
PJ:	I think Sainsbury's carry it over here in the UK. Now that's a huge bulb and it doesn't really taste much like garlic. It's much more fibrous. It tastes more like an onion than garlic really, and that obviously doesn't contain as many beneficial compounds as the smaller bulb garlic would do. But I'd encourage people to try and take different types if garlic if they can. There is a variety which is a single clove of garlic, so in other words it's one big, solid lump of garlic.
MN:	Fantastic.
PJ:	That is quite a knockout.
MN:	Fantastic. It's related to the Lilly I know that much, and of course the onion as well. We have Hannah, sadly with the last question that we can fit in today. Thank you everyone for your questions. Hannah wants to know "Do you take garlic supplements, and if so when was the last time you were ill?" You look a picture of health actually.
{J:	Thank you. Actually Hannah I do take garlic supplements. I've taken Allimax specifically for nearly five years now, and I'm a diabetic so I tend to suffer from coughs and colds, and I can tell you that I haven't had a cold in five years, not one. So it's certainly helped me and I would certainly encourage anybody who wants to stay fit and healthy this winter to get on to a good quality garlic supplement like Allimax.
MN:	Alright, look out for the Allicin. You're looking for something with Allicin 100% in is that right?
PJ:	That's it, 100% Allicin yield.
MN:	Alright and look out for the book as well because 'Allicin The Heart Of Garlic', we'll just hold that up there so you can see what the cover is. It's been published a few times over now I'm thinking Peter.

PJ:	That's right, it's been re-printed several times, and it is generally available so, it's a good read.
MN:	Alright and it is a good read indeed. 'Allicin The Heart Of Garlic - Nature's Aid To Healing The Human Body.' It's written by Peter Josling here. Try and get hold of a copy of that if you can because that will point you in the right direction. Thank you very much indeed for your questions today. Peter thank you very much for joining us, an illuminating chat it's been for the last half hour and I hope you will join us next time.

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