# Garlic as anti-biotic.



## Dana

I heard garlic can be one of the most potent natural antibiotics. Is this true? How much of it much you ingest?


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## Greylock

*greylock*

I have heard of using garlic for it's antibiotic properties as a tea.

Peel cloves, smash cloves, brew in boiling water (about 5 minutes or more), sniff steam, drink water, and finally eat the garlic.

I would personally hesitate to eat much of it raw or apply it externally raw.

I believe it could cause severe stomach problems if consumed in more than nominal quantities and that it could also cause chemical burns if applied wihtout a great deal of care.

Honey is apparently quite good as an external antibiotic.


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## Therese

*Garlic as an antibiotic*

Yes it works-I swear by it. It also has antiviral properties as well. When I am making my chicken soup (jewish penicillin in my family), a whole head of garlic goes into the making of the broth. I find that eating the garlic works better than the capsules or tablets. Also rubbing a cut garlic clove on my son's foot made a wart go away and it never came back. I have actually juiced a head of garlic, saved the juice, soaked the tip of a Q-tip with it and taped the Q-tip end to a corn on my foot and with a couple of days, the corn fell off. Now grantee, all of my coworkers kept asking if anyone else smelled garlic!


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## TechAdmin

Never heard of it before. Any other natural remedies that have antibiotic properties?


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## gds

"Now grantee, all of my coworkers kept asking if anyone else smelled garlic! "

Yes Therese, the stench of garlic applied or consumed will make people run.

Dana, it is not like a pill from the quack, it is a way of life. If I remember correctly garlic has been used as an antibiotic for 2000-2500 yrs. 

Greylock, don't be hesitant just because the FDA doesn't approve. Honey is a good external antibiotic, it's even better internal. As in cut out the processed white sugar and use honey. Therefore your body will not be so susceptible to outside infection.

Dean, the founder, instigator, moderator,admin. of this forum! 
"Never heard of it before".
Environment, up bringing, and location will always dictate what a person has heard or knows. 
Any other natural remedies that have antibiotic properties? Yes , there are many.
Its good to see you have taken a hand in what you created.


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## Therese

Ginger is also good, but both ginger and garlic should not be used for one week before any type of surgery as they interfere with the clotting cascade.

There are many books on the market about medical botany. Try your local library.


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## Blister

I use to have a site saved that was awesome concerning garlic. I can't find it but what the reports were saying is that the compound most useful in garlic as an anti-biotic was produced when it was crushed. Once crushed, the compound was generated on a 7 second cycle with a round being released at 7 seconds and another larger release at 14 seconds. After 14 seconds, the production of the compound was reduced and the compound was only active for a short while.

Not sure if that info will help anyone because I don't have the site, don't remember the name of the compound and don't remember how long it's active.

They also recommended getting your cloves fresh as grocery store bulbs are irradiated and most of the properties destroyed. Also saw a mention of breathing in the steam from a garlic broth for respiratory and sinus issues.


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## Prince

Will garlic clear up my acne?


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## Therese

Honey applied at bedtime on acne will help in healing. Give garlic a try. The worst that will happen is that it burns so much you will wash it off.


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## benJAMMIN

This is kind of the opposite, but I heard that if you drink alot of green tea before sugery, you will bleed alot.


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## Chris

benJAMMIN said:


> This is kind of the opposite, but I heard that if you drink alot of green tea before sugery, you will bleed alot.


I don't know if that's true or not but garlic will "thin" your blood. The tea thing would make sense, during my EMT-B class during injections I would bleed a lot more than I normally would. After reading your post it might have been something to do with the 1 gal of green tea I was drinking a day...


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## Topanga

benJAMMIN said:


> This is kind of the opposite, but I heard that if you drink alot of green tea before sugery, you will bleed alot.


Good to know benJAMMIN!


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## slimeyjoe

You have to give yourself injections in EMT-B class? What do you inject?


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## Farmer John

Garlic is an amazing plant. Two years ago I started feeling like I had the flu, but it never went away. I went from specialist to specialist feeling like a human pin cushion. One blamed my trip to central America years ago, the others could find nothing after countless blood, urine and other test. I gave up and remembered what we were taught in herbal school about garlic. I started taking 1/3 raw garlic twice a day and in days I felt better than I had in months! To this day as soon as I start feeling that same way (or get some bug) I start garlic again. I've tried the pills, but they don't contain the active ingredient...I believe its allicin if I remember right. It doesn't matter, they thought they knew everything about ST. John's Wort and isolated one compound to use then realized it didn't work. They later discovered over 300 active compounds! St. John's in another AMAZING anti-viral, but you can not take it if you are taking any meds. I also use it topically as a anti-inflammatory. 

Honey is the best band-aid you can get! I'm a bee keeper and I've healed countless cuts (some very large) with honey. Honey even produces its own hydrogen peroxide on your wound. It has to be untreated (unprocessed) as they kill many of the beneficial "things" when they heat it over 110 degrees. Another thing, NEVER use honey from a source where you don't know where it is coming from. It is typical for honey packers in the US to pack honey under their label (honey packing plant in US), BUT be from China. Recent shipments of Chinese honey were discovered to contain over 43 known pesticides and antibiotics! This particular batch was tested by the USDA (which rarely test honey) and was going into Sara Lee baked products for over 8 months!


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## Ernie V

How hard is it to start getting some garlic of my own growing?? Seems like a good thing to have around. I'm glad I found this info out. Now I can save more money on meds by replacing them with garlic....I love it!


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## sheDaisy

benJAMMIN said:


> This is kind of the opposite, but I heard that if you drink alot of green tea before sugery, you will bleed alot.


I have heard that as well, benJAMMIN.


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## SaskDame

Garlic is really easy to grow. I often plant the stuff from the store or replant when I dig some up. It overwinters well and keeps on growing; even in a zone 2b.


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## BizzyB

Dean said:


> Never heard of it before. Any other natural remedies that have antibiotic properties?


Coconut. Oil and milk and water. Great stuff. The coconut water is a good source of electrolytes. And the lauric acid in the oil and milk is a crazy good anti-microbial: bacterial, viral, and fungal. It can be taken internally or topically (the oil, mostly).

My favorite cold-buster recipe is based on whatever hot chocolate recipe is handy. (I know the sugar isn't good for the immune system, but I don't care for the taste of the coconut otherwise. But anyway...) Replace at least half of the liquid in the hot chocolate with coconut milk. Delish! I was on a business trip just last week when colleague colleague became an incubus of the viral plague. I grabbed a can of coconut milk from the nearest grocery store and some packets of hot chocolate mix from the hotel lobby and started chugging it all down. She's still sick. I didn't even sneeze. 

Oh and it will last in storage ages longer than the average antibiotic.

(And oh: start slowly with the coconut products. It's all pretty slick through the system, if you know what I mean, and can loosen you up in unpleasant ways until you are accustomed to it...)


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## carolexan

I take garlic everyday. Another good use for garlic is as a anti-inflammatory. Honestly it works wonders on arthritis. Bizzy I'm gonna try that, thanks for the recipe.
I read somewhere that coconut milk was used in WWII when plasma ran out.


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## MrSfstk8d

And let's not forget one very important aspect of garlic.

It's delicious!!


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## townparkradio

Garlic has many wonderful uses. It is good for helping to prevent several forms of cancer, it lessens arterial hardening due to cholesterol in persons who are not already at a high level, it's a known vasodilative, and it's a great expectorant. It is a wonderful topical antibiotic, and when used as such is even a lowlevel antiviral compound.

What it is not, however, is an internal antibiotic. Your stomach acid promptly breaks down the polysulfides (which give it the topical usage) into the vasodilative compound mentioned above.

Let's make this crystal clear: garlic is a wonderful TOPICAL antibiotic. A garlic compound spray would work better than even Bactine.. just remember to wipe it off after a bit or allow it to absorb into a bandage rather than spray directly on a wound. In fact, it's often overkill to leave it on a potentially infective entry point for too long because it will also kill healthy cells in high enough concentration. Ingesting garlic has absolutely no antibiotic properties of any kind; that is nonsense. People are mistaking it's properties as a vasodilator and expectorant for antibiotic ones. Garlic treats the symptoms of bacterial infections internally, it absolutely does NOT treat the cause.

Just because it's making you feel better does not mean it is actually making you better. That said, feeling better IS important for recovery, when you are happy your immune system works better, but that does not make garlic an internal antibiotic any more than chicken soup is an internal antiviral. These particular folk remedies ease you and comfort you, which allows your immune system to do it's job better; nothing more. Reading your favorite book and avoiding stress would do the same job and better.


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## townparkradio

I suppose in theory if injected it would be an internal antibiotic... but "biotic" means "living thing". It'll happily kill friendly cells as well as unfriendly ones. I'm not gonna risk it any more than I would ingest the necessary amount of silver to suspend in my flesh to create a small internal antibiotic use. Your skin will be grey long before you derive any usage of it.

Allow me to go more in depth about how internal antibiotics work. Read this part carefully. Internal antibiotics generally do NOT directly kill the infection! In fact, most are simply bacteriostatic. The ingested compounds enter your bloodstream and slow the growth of the antibiotic. That's all they do, slow down the bacterial growth and reproductive cycle.

Bactericidal substances (such as lysol, bactine, garlic, silver) do destroy bacteria, but they do so by permeating their cellular walls and causing effects ranging from not allowing the bacteria to take in needed nutrients or oxygen, to flatout drying the bacteria out until they die. Now, I will back this off a bit. In high enough concentrations, most bacteriostatics are also bactericidal. However, that is an incidental sideffect, it is your own immune system doing the work with the bacteriostatic aid that helps you get better.

Bactericidal compounds are topical. Bacteriostatic compounds are internal. 

An easy way to remember it is this: if it works when you rub it on, it invariably has little to NO use when ingested.

Everyone knows that pouring alcohol on a wound will cleanse it. Everyone also knows that drinking alcohol has no internal antibiotic properties (beyond the throat). You don't swallow lysol pills, you don;t drink your antibacterial soap. It's almost frightening quackery to claim garlic or silver are any different. The human body simply does not work that way. Anyone who says otherwise is willfully ignoring thousands of years of evidence to the contrary, most of it from the _exact same old sources_ they claim backs their quackery. You might as well talk about the amazing benefits of mercury while you're at it, cause that's something they used to give people doses of in the "old days" as well as an antibiotic.


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## MrSfstk8d

Mercury, lead sugar and asbestos.

Now THAT'S a spicy meatball!!


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## FrostHeaves

I've always just eaten my garlic. I've noticed that the years I eat a little garlic _consistently_, my health is better. That is at least one meal a day.

Does not seem to matter if its poder, dried bits or fresh.

Luckly we all like garlic (even the Mrs) so this tend to work around the "Garlic Death Breath".

How much ? Depends on how much you like garlic.


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## laurahill

Raw garlic is a good natural anti-biotic ,it kills the strains of bacteria and boost the immune system and resistant power.Garlic has good anti-viral and anti-fungal,anti-oxidant properties which helps to lower the cholesterol level,it regulates blood sugar level,Consumption of garlic also prevent the chances of blood pressure problem.Garlic reduces acne and yeast infection.


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## JayJay

I take a garlic tablet every day --it enhances your immune system...and is a healthy heart tablet. I can't tell you if it works because I'm one of those who never gets sick, or catches anything from others)

And I have them in my stock of meds...

But I do have to take a D-3 EVERY day for early morning muscle spasms in my legs..the only thing I've found that works...if anyone has those, it works for me.


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## Javin

Prince said:


> Will garlic clear up my acne?


On the up side, even if it doesn't, the smell will keep people from getting close enough to see it!


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## Immolatus

I love garlic, and I have heard about its tons of medicinal properties.
Townparks comments are making me think...

If nothing else, it keeps the skeeters away from me, at least thats my reasoning. I eat a lot of it, and skeeters generally dont bother me. My girl doesnt like it so much, and theyre all over her.

I had an easy time of growing it, but after two years I had to move the plants, and there were no bulbs, just the same original little stub that I planted.
:scratch


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## Dan1966

TownPark, impressive discourse on the therapeutic uses of garlic and I have to say very spot on. Oral consumption will not work as an antibiotic. This is not to say that there are some immune system benefits to oral consumption but to use it as an oral antibiotic is off base. Great overall discussion on this topic.


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## Javin

townparkradio and Dan1966 are both dead on. 

As a topical, garlic can play a strong antibiotic role, but once ingested it no longer does. This isn't to say that eating garlic isn't helpful. Far from it, in fact. Garlic has been shown to not only significantly increase your blood plasma's overall antioxidant level (a good thing) but it simultaneously reduces your blood glucose levels, which in turn lowers your uric acid, which raises the blood pH (making it less acidic), which means less inflammation of veins and arteries resulting in reduced stress on the heart, lowered cholesterol, and less chance of heart disease and strokes. (That's a fun little chain reaction there.)

And garlic's benefits aren't stopping there. While being packed full of nutrients, it also has plenty of diallyl disulfide. While this may sound like something on a can's label that you'd want to avoid, this is actually a powerful anti-cancer agent. It's been shown in clinical studies that it can "turn on" damaged or defective p53 genes, which are the genes in your body that prevent cancer. Damage to the p53 (from free radicals) are what causes cancer in the first place. Garlic raises antioxidant levels (preventing further damage) and seems to be able to help jump-start p53's that aren't damaged beyond repair. (This doesn't mean it cures cancer, but it definitely helps with the chemo.)

All of this said you can see why it's gotten the nickname "Russian Penicillin."

Unfortunately, that's where its similarities with Penicillin stop. (The same can be said for bee propolis, and echinacia. Both have great health benefits, neither are antibiotics.)

In any sort of a bacterial infection situation (septecemia, gangrene, pneumonia, certain STDs, strep throat, the plague, etc.) No amount of garlic, echinacia, or propolis will help you. You *need* antibiotics.

This said, antibiotics in a SHTF situation are going to be hard to come by. Antibiotics have to be stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit to remain stable for any length of time. This includes pill and powder form. Notice that when you go to the pharmacy, the pills are kept on shelves unrefrigerated. This is because they will be fine at room temperature for six months to a year. Pharmacies expect to turn over their stock faster than that. 

Once the temperature of the antibiotics gets into the 90's, or in the worst case scenario, is exposed to moisture or humidity, the efficacy of the antibiotic can be measured in hours, not months. 

If there's any interest, I can show you a process for producing near medical grade penicillin at home, and it's perfectly safe. (This does NOT mean, under ANY circumstances, that you should use this method to self-medicate unless there is absolutely NO other option. In other words, if you're not living in a post-apocolyptic world, you should not be trying to manufacture your own medicine unless you're suicidal.)

Even with penicillin, there's still problems. For instance, penicillin works by destroying the walls of the bacteria. Bacteria that are susceptible to this are the "Gram Positive" bacteria. Gram Negative bacteria tend to be highly resistant to penicillin. Worse still, through our chronic over-medication, even numerous gram positive bacteria have become all but completely immune to penicillin already (see MRSA). Still, in the PAW, it's better than nothing.

But this brings us back to the garlic, propolis, and echinacia. Better that your immune system already be strong and able to keep you from NEEDING the penicillin in the first place!


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## lazydaisy67

Absolutely an antibiotic! I get sinus infections frequently. At the very first sign that it's happening, usually pain on either side of my eyes, I will peel one garlic clove and slice/chop it into the smallest pieces I can. Then just swig it all down like a pill with a drink of water. You would get "burn" if you used a garlic press as it will release the oils in the garlic that cause the "hot" sensation. I personally have never had a stomach reaction to it, nor has anybody in my family. I have given it to my 4-yr old and he's never complained about a tummy ache. I will eat one clove in the morning and one at night until I feel as if my symptoms are gone. 
For children's ear infections you can make your own ear drops that are extremely effective and fast at clearing it up.

Mix: 1 clove of crushed garlic (in a garlic press)
with 1 T olive oil
and 2-3 drops of tee tree oil
Allow mixture to sit overnight and then strain off any chunks of garlic
saturate a q-tip with oil mixture and gently rub inside the ear 3x per day. If child will tolerate it, drop 2-3 drops inside the ear canal 2x per day. 

Between the two they wipe out an ear infection within a day or two at most.


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## lazydaisy67

Let me rephrase my post to say, for me it works, I don't know how and I don't know why, I just know it does. I can listen to lots of doctors tell me that is DOESN'T work, but yet still see significant results when I use it for specific things. Would I grab the garlic if I had the plague? Probably not, but that doesn't mean that it can't, won't or doesn't work for SOME things.


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