A research team operating out of the Kobe University in Japan, working in partnership with global pharmaceuticals organization Riken, recently unveiled a new paper they had been working on to better understand the impact garlic has on our own biochemistry – particularly when it comes to anabolic impacts.
Interestingly enough, this research team has come to the conclusion (and proved it through their paper) that garlic has the capability to not only elevate testosterone production in the human body but to, at the same time, reduce overall cortisol production as well.
Garlic has long been understood to be a “superfood” as well as a big part of alternative and all natural medicine and healing, particularly in Asia. But this new research provided by the Japanese team suggests that it may be capable of so much more, offering legitimate performance enhancing benefits that could not and should not go overlooked.
One of the more intriguing things about this research paper is that it isn’t the first time that this specific group of researchers have looked into the pharmacological impact that garlic may be able to bring to the table.
In the early 1990s the group had conducted a deep dive into the possibility of garlic as a fat burning supplement. They wanted to fully understand whether or not – as well as how – garlic could help elevate metabolic activity, burn fat faster and more efficiently, and help people lose weight much faster than they would have been able to without it.
That early research showed that garlic was possible of triggering effortless and almost immediate weight loss benefits all because it increases the body’s natural production of noradrenaline.
Flash forward nearly 30 years to the current day and the same research team, working in partnership with the same pharmaceutical organization, is now looking into garlic for its specific anabolic properties and the impact it has on the body.
Research began in Japan on three independent groups of laboratory rats.
Of the three groups, only a single variable in the food that they were given was changed – and that was the amount of protein that the group would receive. One group received 10% protein, another received 20% protein, and the third group was given 40% protein.
Each and every kilogram of rat food (regardless of its overall protein content) also contained eight total grams of garlic extract. Each gram of garlic powder added to the rat food contained 5 mg of the compound dialylsuphides.
Research was conducted over a 28 day block of time and at the conclusion of this test researchers measured the amount of nitrogen that the rats had retained, a marker for the new protein that had been generated.
The results were pretty revealing.
Of the rats that consumed 10% and 20% protein the garlic extract powder they were given had almost no impact whatsoever. There was no real new nitrogen retained and no real new protein generated for these test subjects.
For the rats that consumed 40% protein, however, nitrogen balance levels were up significantly higher than both of the other groups over that same 28 day block of time. Not only that, but levels of cortisol in the form of corticosterone were also considerably lower across the board.
Researchers found that the testosterone levels of the rats that consumed the extra garlic were elevated significantly as well. The higher the protein intake, the more testosterone produced in these laboratory rats – another sure fire sign that garlic does in fact have significant anabolic properties that were not previously fully understood.
Obviously, more research is necessary to fully understand how this might be applicable for human beings but the groundwork is being laid for some pretty big and exciting breakthroughs.
Source:
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/131/8/2150/4686916
https://www.muscleandfitness.com/flexonline/supplements/garlic-power
