If you are avoiding Garlic consumption because it makes your breath smell bad, its properties against colon cancer should make you reconsider. In fact, a recently published Italian study just confirmed that the spice reduces the risk of developing bowel cancer in those who consume it often.
Garlic
The Study
To establish the link between garlic and bowel cancer, the researchers used data from a study conducted at two university hospitals in the Milan region. The sample consisted of 100 colorectal cancer patients, 100 patients with adenomatous polyps, and 100 healthy individuals.
The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire aimed at assessing the frequency of consumption of 75 foods used in Italian cuisine and five alcoholic beverages. Blood samples were also taken to analyze the presence of trace pathogens in the gut microbiota.
According to the results, published in a paper in the European Journal of Nutrition at the end of April, people who consume a medium or high amount of garlic have a much lower risk of developing colorectal cancer than people who consume little garlic.
Colorectal cancer and garlic: microbiota may play a role
The researchers also found that people who consumed a lot of garlic had different DNA traits of microbiota bacteria in their blood than the other participants.
“Medium/high garlic consumption was associated with an increase in the order Corynebacteriales, the family Nocardiaceae, and the genus Rhodococcus and a decrease in the family XI and the genus Finegoldia,” the authors wrote in their paper.
They conclude that their study, in addition to providing new data on garlic’s protective effect against colorectal cancer, “supports the evidence for translocation (movement of a substance from one site to another) of bacterial material in the bloodstream and confirms the hypothesis of a food-microbiota axis as a mechanism underlying garlic’s role in colorectal cancer prevention.”
References
Speciani, M. C., Gargari, G., Penagini, R., Mutignani, M., Ferraroni, M., Natale, A., Katsoulis, M., Cintolo, M., Leone, P., Airoldi, A., Vecchi, M., Bonzi, R., Ciafardini, C., Oreggia, B., Carnevali, P., Guglielmetti, S., Riso, P., La Vecchia, C., & Rossi, M. (2023). Garlic consumption in relation to colorectal cancer risk and to alterations of blood bacterial DNA. European Journal of Nutrition, 62(5), 2279–2292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-023-03110-2
