Garlic Found To Keep Heart Healthier After Heart Surgery 28776

Garlic Found To Keep Heart Healthier After Heart Surgery

NEW DELHI, India--Garlic may reduce oxidative damage associatedwith heart surgery, according to new research recently picked up by the mediaand reported in the Aug. 19 edition of BMC Pharmacology (2, 16:2002) (www.biomedcentral.com/bpmcpharmacol).Researchers, led by Subir Kumar Maulik from the All India Institute of MedicalSciences, worked off the hypothesis that oxidative stress plays a large role inmyocardial ischemic-reperfusion injury (IRI), a condition characterized by bloodflow returning following blood constriction, such as during heart surgery. Thenew flow can cause damage because of the free radicals that it creates, whichmay 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 endogenousantioxidants, according to Maulik et al. The research team, funded by the Indiangovernment's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, investigated how theantioxidant effect of garlic could reduce the severity of heart damage followingIRI. They administered raw garlic homogenate orally to Wistar rats (125 mg/kg,250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg once daily for 30 days) who had been exposed tooxidative stress induced by IRI. It was found that both myocardial endogenousantioxidants and TBARS (oxidative byproducts of low-density lipoprotein)significantly decreased.

Further studies in humans are needed, but the authors concluded that garlicmay have potential to save the lives of patients undergoing heart surgery.