Garlic Found To Keep Heart Healthier After Heart Surgery

NEW DELHI, India--Garlic may reduce oxidative damage associated with heart surgery, according to new research recently picked up by the media and reported in the Aug. 19 edition of BMC Pharmacology (2, 16:2002). Researchers, led by Subir Kumar Maulik from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, worked off the hypothesis that oxidative stress plays a large role in myocardial ischemic-reperfusion injury (IRI), a condition characterized by blood flow returning following blood constriction, such as during heart surgery. The new flow can cause damage because of the free radicals that it creates, which may reduce cardiac function and create permanent heart tissue injury. Sometimes, this can be fatal for patients undergoing heart surgery.

However, raw garlic has been reported to augment myocardial endogenous antioxidants, according to Maulik et al. The research team, funded by the Indian government's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, investigated how the antioxidant effect of garlic could reduce the severity of heart damage following IRI. They administered raw garlic homogenate orally to Wistar rats (125 mg/kg, 250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg once daily for 30 days) that had been exposed to oxidative stress induced by IRI. It was found that both myocardial endogenous antioxidants and TBARS (oxidative byproducts of low-density lipoprotein) significantly decreased.

Further studies in humans are needed, but the authors concluded that garlic may have potential to save the lives of patients undergoing heart surgery. For the complete study, click here.