Affiliations: Department of Agricultural and Biological Chemistry,
College of Bioresource Sciences, and Department of Applied Life Sciences,
Graduate School of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University, Kameino 1866,
Fujisawa, Kanagawa 252-8510, Japan
Abstract: Garlic (Allium sativum L.) has a long history as being a food having
a unique taste and odor along with some medicinal qualities. Modern scientific
research has revealed that the wide variety of dietary and medicinal functions
of garlic can be attributed to the sulfur compounds present in or generated
from garlic. Although garlic produces more than 20 kinds of sulfide compounds
from a few sulfur-containing amino acids, their functions are different from
one another; e.g., allicin, methyl allyl trisulfide, and diallyl trisulfide
have antibacterial, antithrombotic, and anticancer activities, respectively.
The present paper reviews the physiological functions of garlic in
the limited study fields of its antithrombotic and anticancer effects. Before
describing these effects, however, we will discuss briefly some characteristics
of garlic as a plant and some modes of absorption of orally-administered sulfur
compounds from garlic.
Keywords: Garlic, alliinase, allyl sulfides, thrombosis, cancer
Journal: BioFactors, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 93-103, 2006
