Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 1997; 2: 188
The deformability of erythrocytes is an important factor in blood viscosity. Reduced deformability of red blood cells hinders microcirculation leading to tissue nutrition disturbances.
Reflection contrast microscopy (RCM) followed by digital image analysis was used to group normocytes in five classes, based on their form and the way they adhere to surfaces. Moreover, two different adhesion types can be differentiated. Fourteen healthy people (7 men, 7 women) underwent a dietary intake of 3–4 cloves of native garlic each day for a week. At the days 1, 4 and 7 blood samples were taken and investigated by means of RCM.
Under the diet with garlic we saw a reversible shift to the normocyte class 5 with a reduction in the classes 3 and 4. The effect was more pronounced in men. Five days after the end of the diet we found a reduction of class 5 and an increase in the classes 3 and 4.
For both of the obtained parameters (classes and adhesion types) our study revealed significant changes as a result of a brief garlic diet. What we saw was a reversible shift to less rigid states of normocytes. This is the first morphological evidence at the cellular level indicative of a rheological mechanism for the prophylactic effect of garlic to combat arteriosclerosis.
