Nature’s Flu Fighter

Many times a year patients will seek naturopathic treatment advice because their symptoms or their children’s cause school to be missed, work to be cancelled, and social occasions to be turned down. The most common culprits? Cold and flu.

While a good night’s sleep, proper nutrition and down time are your body’s first line of defense, another piece of advice I give to help prevent and treat infections is a stabilized bioactive allicin garlic supplement called Allimax. The aim being to help keep the whole family healthy all year long with nature’s antibiotic.

Why it Works

When fresh garlic is cut or crushed, a sulphur compound, allicin, combines with an enzyme, allinase and a chemical reaction starts. The first compound that is formed is allicin. It is the allicin that, in total or in part, is responsible for the antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial properties attributed to garlic. Allicin-sensitive viruses are: the human cytomegalovirus, influenza B, herpes simplex virus type 1, herpes simplex virus type 2, parainfluenza virus type 3, vaccinia virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, and human rhinovirus type 2.

Allicin-Stable Technology

With resistance to antibiotics on the rise, some researchers have turned to allicin-stable products and, in the past several years, clinical reports showing efficacy against the superbug, MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) have been published. MRSA is a nasty bacterium, forever changing its structure and developing resistance to many pharmaceutical antibiotics.

In 2004, a study reported in the British Journal of Biomedical Science showed that stabilized allicin killed 30 strains of MRSA. Also, three cured case histories of patients having MRSA, were delivered at the American Society of Microbiology, Atlanta, USA, and the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology, Chemotherapy and Infectious Diseases, at Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2005.

Allimax was the first of its kind to conduct a double blind study on the use of just 1 capsule a day to prevent the common cold virus. Research conducted by The Garlic Centre*, based on a 90 day trial of 144 volunteers, conclusively demonstrated that allicin, garlic’s crucial active ingredient, will provide invaluable protection against this destructive and irritating virus. The placebo group suffered 65 colds while the active group suffered only 24 colds. The most interesting results of the study found that the severity, duration and symptoms lasted an average of 5.5 days for the placebo group and 1.5 for the active group. Allimax has the potential to assist the immune system in a number of different ways, stimulating immune cells, killing pathogens and detoxifying carcinogens.

Fascinating History

It is thought that garlic originated in the Kirgiz desert in Siberia around 7000 years ago. It was imported into ancient Egypt to feed the slaves who built the pyramids and to keep them fit, healthy and free from infections – a fact that was inscribed on the Great Pyramid of Cheops in 3000 B.C. The Egyptian ‘Ebers Codex’ papyrus from 1500 B.C. was also found recommending garlic as a cure for 22 different medical conditions including: heart problems, headaches, bites, worms and tumors. In fact, the only slave revolt in Egypt was by labourers over a lack of garlic when the Nile flooded the garlic fields. Since that time garlic has played an important part in almost every civilization across the globe.

In ancient Greece, garlic was consumed in large quantities to improve circulation and build strength. The first Olympian athletes consumed vast quantities before a competition to build stamina and keep free from illness. Dioscorides a Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist and author of a five-volume encyclopedia about medicine, wrote in 80 A.D. of garlic’s ability to “clear the arteries” and was held in esteem as the founder of the modern pharmacy. He dispensed garlic to treat rabid dog bites, snake bites, infections, bronchitis and cough.

In 1665 A.D. the London College of Physicians recommended garlic for the Great Plague while at the same time, leading English physician, Sydenham, used garlic in Africa for typhoid fever and cholera. In 1942, during WWII, penicillin and other sulfa drugs were scarce and garlic was used as an antiseptic to disinfect battle wounds, prevent gangrene and cure dysentery. In traditional Chinese Medicine garlic is the mainstay for many common ailments.

In the last 50 years an enormous amount of research has been published all over the world to confirm the many beneficial properties of garlic and the components that are generated when garlic is cut, crushed, cooked or processed.

The fact that stabilized bioactive allicin can have an antifungal, antibacterial and antiviral benefits means that there are so many uses available for this product. Allimax has shown proven results in the treatment of cold sores, warts, fungal nails and candida.

Nahida Jamal, BHSc, ND is part of the team at Trinity Health Clinic, located in North York / Toronto. 

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