Scientists from the National Institute of Integrative Medicine in Australia found that garlic could help lower blood pressure, improve gut health, and reduce artery stiffness.
Garlic is a plant in the Allium (onion) family. It is closely related to onions, shallots, and leeks.
Garlic provides excellent health-promoting and disease-preventing effects on many human common diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, blood pressure, and diabetes, through its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and lipid-lowering properties.
Scientists have found that garlic could help reduce blood pressure, similar to high blood pressure medications.
Kyolic garlic stimulates detoxification and helps to protect the liver against oxidation-induced diseases. It can also help in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
It helps prevent chronic inflammation and boosts the body’s immune system activity and its natural ability to fight.
Kyolic garlic has also shown promise in improving heart health by reducing arterial stiffness, blood cholesterol levels, and blood ‘stickiness’.
In addition, the prebiotic properties in garlic can increase gut microbial richness and diversity, and improve gut health.
In the current study, researchers reviewed clinical trials about the effects of garlic on blood pressure.
They also checked the findings of the effects of Kyolic aged garlic extract on arterial stiffness, and gut health in people with high blood pressure.
Kyolic aged garlic extract is made from garlic grown on certified organic farms in California’s Central Valley, where it is cultivated without the use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides.
The team reviewed 12 studies, which included 553 people with high blood pressure.
The findings confirmed that garlic supplements lower systolic blood pressure by an average of 8.3 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 5.5 mmHg, similarly to standard high blood pressure medications.
In addition, this reduction in blood pressure was linked to a 16-40% reduction in the risk of suffering from heart attacks, strokes, and heart failure.
The team also found vitamin B12 status plays an important role in the responsiveness of blood pressure to garlic.
Furthermore, Kyolic aged garlic extract strongly lowered central blood pressure, pulse pressure, and arterial stiffness, and improved the gut microbiota after 3 months of supplementation.
Based on the findings, the team concluded that Kyolic aged garlic extract is quite safe for the treatment of high blood pressure, with multiple benefits for heart health.
The research is published in Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine and was conducted by Karin Ried et al.
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