Garlic may be strong cancer fighter

COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 11 (UPI) -- A new test hints garlic may be a strong cancer fighter, Ohio State University researchers say.

Senior author Earl Harrison and colleagues say gas chromatography-mass spectrometry separates components of a mixture to detect specific substances to design a urine test to measure the extent of a potential carcinogenic process known as nitrosation.

The small pilot study, reported in Analytical Biochemistry, found the results of the urine test suggested the more garlic people consumed, the lower the levels of the potential carcinogenic process were.

"Our results showed that those were inversely related to one another -- meaning that the more we had the marker for garlic consumption, the less there was of the marker for the risk of cancer," Harrison says in a statement.

The nitrosation process is mostly initiated by consuming substances from certain processed meats, high-heat food preparation practices, or water contaminated by industrial or agricultural runoff called nitrates -- about 20 percent of which convert to nitrites.

Harrison says a cascade of events can convert these compounds into what are called nitrosamines -- many of which, but not all, are linked to cancer. It seems garlic may play some role in inhibiting formation of these nitrogen-based toxic substances, Harrison says.