Garlic has always been one of the healthiest ingredients nature give us. On the other hand, Lyme Disease, commonly delivered by tick bites, has been spreading faster than the scientists expected due to the increasing growth of the ticks population. Lyme Disease is triggered by bacteria carried by ticks, transmitted when the insects bite and suck human blood. Now, a recent study found that the banal garlic is a reliable ally against Lyme Disease.
Immediately after the US CDC disclosed that tick-borne diseases, including Lyme Disease, are on the rise in the US (Canada is facing the same problem, also), the scientists started to study how to tackle the conditions caused by Borrelia bacterium, commonly spread by ticks. According to CDC, 59,349 Lyme Disease cases, up from 48,610 the years before, have been recorded across the United States.
As reported by a new study carried out by the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, garlic could treat Lyme Disease.
Garlic Could Treat Lyme Disease
While the CDC reported that about 60,000 Lyme Disease case happened across the US in 2017, the scientists from the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate that there are more than 300,000 cases in the US. For the majority of these cases, a treatment based on doxycycline or other antibiotic tackles the infection within weeks. However, for other individuals, the therapy with antibiotics is not working.
So, the researchers focused on finding alternatives for the regular doxycycline treatment. According to them, garlic might be the ideal ally against Lyme Disease. According to a new study, Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium behind Lyme, can enter into a slow-growing phase where the cells of the bacteria are immune to antibiotics. Garlic can deal with those cells and eliminate Lyme Disease for good.
“We found that these essential oils were even better at killing the persister forms of Lyme bacteria than standard Lyme antibiotics,” explained Dr. Ying Zhang, the leading author of the study.
