How to Take Garlic for Colon Cleansing

2019-01-29 21:13:51 by Gord Kerr

Garlic is not only a healthy food, but it has beneficial antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that can benefit your colon and entire body.

Garlic has been used since ancient times as a food flavoring and for its medicinal value. Garlic is still recognized for its nutritional benefit and its antibacterial, antifungal and antioxidant properties. All of these can help to naturally cleanse your colon by removing toxins, pathogens and parasites from your body. Additionally, as a proven anti-inflammatory, garlic may help reduce inflammation in your entire digestive system to improve absorption of food nutrients, digestion and the elimination of wastes.

Garlic in a Balanced Diet

Garlic benefits your digestive health by providing your body with the nutrition the bulb offers. The garlic bulb consists of small cloves, and each of these is a powerhouse of nutrition for the health of your colon and your whole body.

Providing 13 calories, just three cloves of garlic deliver 8 percent of the recommended daily value (DV) for manganese. Other minerals in garlic include iron, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, potassium, copper and zinc.

According to SELFNutritionData, essential vitamins in three cloves include 5 percent DV for vitamin C and 6 percent DV for vitamin B6. In addition, garlic contains vitamins B1, B2, B3 and folate. The B vitamins are necessary for keeping your digestive system running efficiently. For example, vitamin B3 is required to metabolize food, produce gastric juice and help with the secretion of bile — all important for the digestion of fat.

Reap the Benefits of Allicin

Eat garlic to get allicin's antioxidant benefit for maintaining the health of your colon. Garlic contains allicin, a sulfur-containing phytonutrient responsible for garlic's strong odor and its many healing properties. Sulfur is an abundant mineral in your body and vital for the formation of muscles, skin and bones. In addition to having powerful antioxidant and antibacterial properties, allicin strengthens the immune system to provide healing and anti-cancer benefits, including cancer of the bowels, according to ScienceDirect.

Reduce Colorectal Cancer Risk

Want to reduce the risk of colon cancer? Heap on the garlic at mealtime, suggests the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), which reports the cancer-preventive agents of garlic's allicin sulfur components help with DNA repair and slow the growth of cancer cells and the formation of colon tumors.

AICR recommends including garlic as part of a well-balanced diet and advises that the more raw or cooked garlic you eat, the more you can decrease your risk of cancer. The National Cancer Institute says an increased intake of garlic reduces the risk of cancers of the digestive tract, specifically the esophagus, stomach and pancreas.

Remove Parasites

Eating garlic for colon health may kill parasites — possibly a result of its anti-inflammatory properties. Raw garlic is an old home remedy for worms, and a study conducted on animals may dispel any suspicion of an old wives' tale. Four groups of mice were treated with garlic oil for worms.

The results, published in Parasitology Research, found that garlic reduced the number of worms in groups receiving garlic in the first week of the study. Garlic given later had little effect. The researchers surmised that this difference might be that garlic was affecting, not the worms directly, but the immune system, blocking inflammation.

Help Prevent Lung Cancer

Garlic is beneficial to other cancers besides those originating in the gastrointestinal system, so eating garlic is good for decreasing overall risk. According to a study at the Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China, people who ate raw garlic at least twice a week for seven years had a 44 percent lower risk of developing lung cancer. The conclusion, published in the journal Cancer Prevention Research in 2013, suggests that garlic may be a chemo-preventive agent for lung cancer.

Read more: How Does Lung Cancer Affect Your Body?

Keep Colds Away

If you eat garlic, you're less likely to get sick, thanks to its antibacterial and antiviral properties. If you do catch a cold, chewing fresh, raw garlic helps break up nasal congestion. A study published in the Cochrane Library in 2014 found that people who consumed garlic daily for three months had fewer colds than the group who took placebos — 24 occurrences as opposed to 65. The length of illness from the cold was the same in both groups.

How to Maximize Benefits

The way garlic is processed or prepared can really change its health benefits:

Crush, chop or slice your garlic before you eat it. This releases the allicin content, says the Linus Pauling Institute.
Before you cook with your crushed garlic, let it stand for 10 minutes.
Use a lot of garlic — more than one clove per meal provides the most benefits.
Don't heat garlic in the microwave. It takes as little as 60 seconds to inactivate the healthy allicin compound, warns Medical Daily.

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Author

Gordon Kerr has worked in the health care industry for the past 15 years. He holds a diploma in Food and Nutritional Science from CSNN, Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, Vancouver. With his passion for a healthy lifestyle and the desire to help others benefit from proper nutrition and natural remedies, Gordon accepted the international position with CARICOM Regional Food and Nutrition in the Caribbean and moved to Barbados. As well as educating the under-nourished people in the region, Gordon formulated dietary plans to help manage medical conditions including chronic nutrition-related diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension. Now retired, Gord enjoys a quiet life on a small island in the Gulf Islands of B.C.