Garlic might not just be good for keeping vampires away, but also COVID-19 and the common flu, according to new research being released by The Peter Doherty Institute.
Scientists at Doherty have been researching garlic properties over the past 18 months and have discovered a certain Australian grown garlic variety demonstrates antiviral properties with up to 99.9 per cent efficacy against the viruses which cause COVID-19 and the common flu.
Garlic has been used for centuries because of its health properties, but with little proof – until now.
The world-first research, commissioned by the Australian Garlic Producers (AGP) organization, involved in-vitro testing against the SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza type A viruses, using garlic ingredients extracted from exclusive Australian grown garlic varieties.
The most efficacious garlic varieties and their extracted proprietary garlic ingredient are being commercialized. They will be able to be taken as a soft capsule supplement similar to vitamin C or fish oil and are subject to a recently lodged International Patent.
Dr. Julie McAuley, Manager of the Doherty’s high containment facility COVID-19 research lab, said the results were striking.
“We wanted to know if these strains had the possibility of killing COVID-19,” she told The Australian Financial Review. “I thought it might fail miserably. We blindly tested over 20 varieties. We found one of AGP’s products could reduce the infectious titer of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza by 3-log-fold (99.9 per cent). We barely detected any remaining virus genome, indicating nearly complete virucidal activity.”
Dr. McAuley said the variety was tested across different sites to ensure the results were not related to the environment, nutrients, water or anything else.
“Garlic is known to be good for killing bacteria. It’s long been used in traditional Chinese medicine. People have been joking with me that it might help for social distancing too.”
The Doherty Institute said that the result only related to one type of garlic and stringent clinical trials would need to be conducted to determine if the findings translated from test tubes to humans. Epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz added: “We won’t know if this product helps with COVID-19 or influenza until we run clinical trials in real people, rather than petri dishes in a lab.”
The CEO of Australian Garlic Producers, Nick Diamantopoulos, said garlic had been used for centuries because of its powerful properties. “The big discovery here is being able to extract this without losing any of the properties,” he said. “It’s great for Australian farmers. Hopefully, we will be able to export this overseas.”
EDITOR’S TAKE:
Wow, this development sounds great, very promising. However, it is a long road from petri dish to commercialization. If it proves successful, then producers in other countries could license the varieties or develop similar ones to grow domestically. Any new development of this nature provides not only hope to improve human health, but it could be worth billions to garlic production across the globe. U.S. garlic producers would certainly jump on the bandwagon, thus, providing them with much greater income opportunities. Which in the long-run would mean more truck sales. We realize this is pure speculation at this juncture, but this is exactly how many agricultural developments have begun. In the meantime, eat garlic because it adds flavor and helps our current garlic producers increase their bottom line!
