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Garlic: Studies say garlic helps prevent cancer

Researchers said today an analysis of 17 population studies revealed that people who tend to eat more garlic have lowers rates of these cancers.

At the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Philadelphia, Aaron Fleischauer, a researcher in the departments of epidemiology and nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said he found a 30 percent reduction in colon cancer and a 50 percent reduction in stomach cancer among people who ingested a lot of garlic in their diet as compared to those with little garlic in their food.

``We found that eating about 18 grams - less than an ounce - of garlic a week was protective,'' Fleischauer said. ``There is about three grams of garlic in each clove, so one clove in one meal a day is enough to reduce the risk.''

The studies, taken together, looked at the eating habits and disease status of more than 100,000 people, the researcher said. The studies included people in the United States, Italy and China.

Fleishchauer said his work convinced him to add garlic to his own diet.

Riccardo Puntoni, chief of environmental epidemiology and biostatistics at the National Cancer Institute, Genoa, Italy, a co- author of one of the studies in Fleischauer's analysis, said he found a protective effect among people in his region of Italy, who generally eat a garlic-rich pesto with their food.

Puntoni said his study determined that in areas where there was a high intake of garlic - ``where garlic was used in almost everything'' - the incidence of stomach cancer was low, compared to low-garlic consumption regions.

Fleischauer said differences in gathering data among the studies, as well as some questionable epidemiological data collection and researcher biases, might limit the reliability of the study conclusions.

``Nevertheless,'' he said, ``evidence from these studies suggests a preventive effect of garlic consumption in stomach and colorectal cancers.''

He said the limitations indicate the need for more definitive research and improved nutritional epidemiologic analyses of dietary data.