Garlic Central News

Research published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics shows a possible future role for garlic in medical cancer treatment.

The most powerful active compound obtained from garlic is allicin. A reaction between alliin and alliinase creates allicin when garlic is crushed. Although powerful, allicin is short-lived and has thus proved difficult to target clinically.

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel armed Rituximab - an antibody already in clinical use - with alliinase. The armed Rituximab was injected into mice that had previously been implanted with human lymphoma cancer cells.

Rituximab targets certain cancer cells, so when the mice were injected with alliin the reaction created allicin molecules just where they were needed.

Almost all of the test cancer cells were destroyed within three days.

The experiment suggests that a similar treatment for humans could possibly be developed.