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Top Health Benefits of Garlic for National Garlic Day

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  Published on April 19th, 2020
  Reading time: 2 minutes
  Last modified January 21st, 2023
What are the health benefits of garlic?

The smell of garlic bread is enough to drive someone on the keto diet crazy, and rightly so: Not only is it delicious, there are numerous health benefits of garlic.

There’s no reason to think that garlic bread is gone forever when you’re on the keto diet, make our keto bread, slather it with butter and chopped garlic, and toss it in the oven.

While you’re snacking on some keto-friendly garlic bread for National Garlic Day, let’s take a look at the top health benefits of garlic and why you should incorporate it into your diet.

Boost Your Immune System

When cold season approaches, skip the vitamin C and reach for garlic. Allicin is a large component of garlic and gives it some of its major benefits including improvements in immune health. Allicin has been shown to provide both anti-inflammatory and immune system boosting. One study confirmed that garlic seems to boost the function of your immune system by stimulating a variety of immune cells. [1]

Feel like you’re coming down with the flu? Check out our article on how the ketogenic diet can help you prevent and bounce back from the flu.

Improve Cholesterol Levels

Are you interested in beginning the ketogenic diet, but you have concerns about your cholesterol levels? Paired with ketogenic meals, garlic might be a natural way to improve healthy cholesterol levels.

Garlic supplementation has been shown to increase HDL cholesterol or what is more commonly known as good cholesterol. This is especially true for those people who already have cardiovascular disease. What’s more, studies found that garlic simultaneously decreases levels of bad cholesterol. [2]

Better Detoxification

Our bodies are well equipped to naturally detoxify foreign elements, harmful compounds, and much more. With that said, it can’t hurt to give your body a helping hand.

Garlic itself does not “detox” your body. Rather, garlic supplementation has been shown to improve liver health and the livers natural detoxification abilities. One study followed workers who were constantly exposed to high levels of lead for a month. During this time, the workers that were given 1200 ?g allicin, three times daily, were found to have significantly lower levels of lead in their blood. Symptoms related to lead poisoning also decreased. [3]

How Much Garlic Should You Eat?

It depends on how you plan on consuming the garlic. If you’re not a fan of garlic breath, there are aged-garlic supplements. The dosages will vary but a serving of 1,000 mg per day, spread throughout the day, is a typical recommendation.

If you want to maximize the amount of allicin you get, we recommend eating raw garlic. It is easier to chop up a clove into smaller pieces and swallow it whole with water. It’s recommended to do this once with each large meal, which means you’ll eat two or three cloves per day.

David James Sautter is a fitness writer with over a decade of experience in the industry. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English and Secondary Education, he earned certifications as a NASM-certified personal trainer, NASM-certified fitness nutrition specialist, and ACE-certified sports conditioning specialist. Merging his two passions, he has been the driving creative force behind articles, e-books, and training guides that cover a range of health and fitness topics with an emphasis on the ketogenic diet.

References

1.

Arreola R, Quintero-Fabián S, López-Roa RI, Flores-Gutiérrez EO, Reyes-Grajeda JP, Carrera-Quintanar L, Ortuño-Sahagún D. Immunomodulation and anti-inflammatory effects of garlic compounds. J Immunol Res. 2015;2015:401630. doi: 10.1155/2015/401630. Epub 2015 Apr 19.

2.

Ried K, Toben C, Fakler P. Effect of garlic on serum lipids: an updated meta-analysis.Nutr Rev. 2013 May;71(5):282-99. doi: 10.1111/nure.12012. Epub 2013 Mar 7.

3.

Kianoush S, Balali-Mood M, Mousavi SR, Moradi V, Sadeghi M, Dadpour B, Rajabi O, Shakeri MT. Comparison of therapeutic effects of garlic and d-Penicillamine in patients with chronic occupational lead poisoning. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2012 May;110(5):476-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1742-7843.2011.00841.x. Epub 2011 Dec 29.

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