  Judy Siegel-Itzkovich From The Jerusalem Post Eating garlic helps prevent obesity - if you're a rat, according to Sheba Hospital researchers who serendipitously discovered the phenomenon in rodents whose blood pressure and blood fat levels had decreased when fed allicin, the pungent, bulbous root's main active ingredient. Prof. Talma Rosenthal, head of the Tel Hashomer hospital's hypertension unit, said that garlic - known as a natural antibiotic - could be a boon to health. She presented the finding about allicin and weight at a recent conference of the American Hypertension Society conference in San Francisco. But she told The Jerusalem Post that while the results were clear, the mechanism by which allicin keeps weight down is not understood. Four years ago, Weizmann Institute biological chemists revealed a molecular mechanism that serves as the basis for garlic's therapeutic effects and developed a unique procedure for producing large quantities of pure allicin. Prof. David Mirelman and Prof. Meir Wilchek found that strong-smelling allicin is produced when garlic cloves are crushed and naturally protects the plant from soil parasites and fungi. The Weizmann researchers then explained how allicin fights infection by disabling a large variety of pathogens, including certain bacteria, fungi, and viruses, and confirmed that it prevents the formation of oxygen-free radicals, which can set off the process of tumor development. Since similar enzyme activity is involved in the formation of cholesterol, Mirelman and Wilchek suggested that allicin may prevent its production and accumulation on the inside walls of coronary arteries. Rosenthal and her colleagues, who have a special strain of rats with high blood pressure and type II diabetes, fed two groups of rodents the same high-fructose (sugar) diet, except that one group also received synthesized allicin and the other did not. They found that the first group did not gain weight, while the second did, producing the conclusion that allicin keeps weight down. Copyright © 1995-2001 The Jerusalem Post
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