The creamy, white pod of highly pungent garlic are staple ingredients of various cuisines across the world. Along with rendering a signature flavor to the dishes, it also gifts you a wide array of benefits for your health, hair, and skin. One of the most common ingredient in the treatment of various painful health conditions, garlic helps alleviate cold, fever, itchy skin conditions, blood pressure, and diabetes, to name a few. Catch up with to know more about how garlic improves your health.
15. Must Know Health Benefits of Garlic
1. Keeps You Safe From Infections
Garlic is rich with powerful antibiotic and antifungal properties, which help in stimulating the synthesis of white blood corpuscles, the body’s innate infection combating tools. It also helps in increasing various enzymes that could cope up and shield the invasion of various viruses and bacteria. Thus, garlic helps keep viral and bacterial infections at bay.
2. Helps To Regulate Cholesterol Levels
Numerous studies on garlic suggest that it has the potential to lower the levels of cholesterol. In a study it was noticed that people who used garlic pills showcased a 12% reduction in the levels of cholesterol.
[ Read: How To Decrease Your Bad Cholesterol of Level ]
3. Shields Your Cardiovascular System
As mentioned above, garlic is a wonderful cholesterol regulator. In addition, it also inhibits the plaque growth and build-up on the arterial walls, which if left unhandled chocks the arterial system, eventually leading to various cardiovascular conditions.
4. Aids In Weight Loss
Allicin, a compound present in garlic, is well-known for its anti-inflammatory properties. Being a diaphoretic herb, it also helps in stimulating profuse sweating in the body and increasing your metabolism. According to recent study conducted on mice, the animals that were fed with 2 to 7% of garlic for seven continuous weeks reported fat loss. While studies are yet to establish the weight loss benefits of this pungent herb, you could include it safely in your diet.
5. Helps To Heal Skin Infections
The antiviral and antibacterial properties of garlic makes it a great solution for various skin infections, including athlete’s foot. Massage a few drops of garlic-infused oil into the affected area to ward off the infection.
6. Natural Cure For Pimples And Acne
The various anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-fungal compounds along with sulphur make garlic a natural remedy for skin outbreaks. Apply freshly extracted juice of garlic on the affected area to clear the infection. You could also include raw garlic or garlic pills in your diet to help in cleansing the skin from within and staving off the free radicals that cause such inflammations.
[ Read: How To Use Pomegranate To Treat Acne ]
7. Helps In Delaying The Onset of Aging Signs
Garlic is a powerful anti-aging herb. The powerful antioxidants in this spice herb scavenge the free radicals, thereby preventing the early appearance of aging signs such as fine lines and wrinkles. Include about half to one teaspoon of garlic oil or juice from freshly cut garlic in your face pack to reap its anti-aging benefits.
8. Prevents Blood Clots
Ajoene, found in garlic, has the power to prevent the blood from clotting. While this could help people with increased cardiovascular ailments risk, people should be careful while including garlic in their diet after surgery as it could stimulate increased bleeding.
9. Regulates Blood Pressure
Allicin, present in garlic, inhibits the activity of the protein that increases the blood pressure levels. It also contains polysulphides that help in the dilatation of blood vessels, thus regulating the blood pressure. However, if you are on any anti-hypertensive drug, please check with your doctor before using garlic as a natural remedy.
10. Helps To Ease Pain And Inflammations
Garlic has rich analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties that enables it to be used as a natural cure for inflammatory, painful conditions like arthritis and joint pains. Make a poultice with crushed garlic and turmeric powder, dip it in hot sesame oil, and place it atop the affected region to ease the pain and swelling. You can also prepare garlic oil by heating 10 pods of crushed garlic in sesame oil. You can use this daily to heal the pain in the affected area.
11. Natural Cure For Fever And Common Cold
Various compounds in garlic help in preventing the onset of common cold and fever frequently. Being diaphoretic in nature, it could be used to bring down fever. Its natural expectorant properties helps in healing throat infections, upper respiratory tract infections, and chronic bronchitis. It is also an effective natural cure for asthma.
12. Good For The Diabetics
Garlic helps in improving the insulin sensitivity, thereby regulating the levels of blood sugar. Include garlic pills or a few pods of garlic as a part of your healthy diet to manage your diabetes efficiently.
[ Read: How Cinnamon Helps In Diabetes ]
13. Shields You From The Risk of Cancer
The allyl sulphides present in garlic is well-known for their anti-cancerous properties. These compounds prevent PhIP from converting into carcinogens, thus shielding you from cancer. Studies suggest that people who include at least two teaspoons of garlic in their diet have significantly lower risk of cancer.
14. Eases Toothache
Apply anti-inflammatory garlic juice or powder on the affected zone to ease toothache in minutes.
15. Cure For Ear Infections
Heat 2 tbsp sesame oil with 2 pods crushed garlic. Steep for 3 to 4 minutes and allow to turn lukewarm. You can use this antibacterial and antibiotic natural ear drops to clear the infection and ease the pain.
The list of health benefits of garlic is a vast one. It is pretty easy to use and safe also. So, start including garlic in your diet right away and reap its goodness.
Do take garlic regularly and share your experiences with me a comment below!