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Garlic ingredient wipes out hospital superbugs in tests
Most people do not realize that the majority of modern
medicines are still extracted from plants, given fancy names and marketing
campaigns, and sold in bottles for far more than the cost of raising (or
finding) the plants yourself. Digitalis comes from Foxglove. Valium comes
from the Valaria plant, and so forth. Garlic has been known as a "blood
purifier" for hundreds of years,ridding the body of certain parasites and
curing many of what are now known to be infectious blood-borne illnesses.
(As a side note, this medicinal use of garlic is the origin of the myth
of its effectiveness against vampires). So, the fact that garlic may help
fight off bacteria resistant to synthetic antibiotics is not as strange
as it may sound.
Garlic ingredient wipes out
hospital superbugs in tests
By John von Radowitz
29 December 2003
BAn ingredient in garlic may offer one of the best
defences against hospital superbugs, research
shows. The compound is said to be effective
even against highly resistant strains of the
notorious MRSA bug, which has claimed many
lives.
Tests by Dr Ron Cutler, a microbiologist, showed
it can cure patients with MRSA-infected wounds
"within days", he said. Allicin, which occurs
naturally in garlic, not only killed known varieties
of MRSA, but also new superbug generations
resistant to "last-resort" antibiotics such as
vancomycin. The findings will be published in the
Journal of Biomedical Science in the new year.
Dr Cutler, from the University of East London, said: "Antibiotics are increasingly
ineffective [against MRSA]. Plant compounds have evolved over millions
of years as
chemical defence agents against infection. Garlic has been used in medicine
for
centuries."
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) causes 2,000 deaths
in UK
hospitals each year, mainly by infecting surgical wounds. Dr Cutler is
starting clinical
trials.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=476684