A new study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry has found that garlic could have beneficial and protective effects on the cardiac muscle, especially in people with diabetes.
Diabetes is a widespread metabolic disorder that affects over 23 million people in the U.S. alone, according to the American Diabetes Association. People who suffer from this disease have at least two times the risk of dying from a heart-related disease as compared to people without diabetes. In fact, heart disease contributes to approximately 80% of all diabetes-related deaths. Finding a natural substance that could protect the heart from this effect would be potentially life-saving for a large number of people.
In this study laboratory rats with diabetes were given either corn oil or garlic oil. The animals who received the garlic oil experienced changes in the heart tissue that were protective. Although the mechanism of this protection is still unknown, the scientists identified over 20 chemicals in garlic that may contribute to this effect, and noted that garlic oil had potent antioxidant abilities. In addition, the beneficial response was dose dependant, meaning that more benefit was achieved with higher doses of garlic oil.
Although this study was conducted in an animal model, scientists hope the results could be extrapolated to humans, especially since garlic consumption would be an easy dietary addition that could significantly protect against cardiomyopathy, especially in diabetics. Not only does garlic oil help control high blood sugar in diabetics, it may also prevent against heart disease, and ultimately contribute to the prevention of diabetes-related morbidity and mortality.
You can read that abstract of this study at the ACS Publications website at
http://pubs.acs.org.