How garlic stops MRSA deaths

Patients who have suffered for years with weeping, infected wounds have been cleared after a course of garlic pills and creams, recent trials at the University of East London have shown.

So far more than 250 people have been successfully treated.

Later this year a study detailing the results of the first 52 patients will be published in the journal Advances In Therapy.

Many of the volunteers had wounds which had refused to heal for several years – despite prolonged treatment with antibiotics.

Swabs confirmed they all carried the drug-resistant hospital superbug MRSA – but most were cured within eight to 12 weeks of treatment. Larger wounds took 18 weeks to heal.

Microbiologist Dr Ron Cutler, who headed the study, says: “It does take a little longer, but it’s an effective treatment, especially for those people with chronic MRSA lesions.”

He adds: “We have had patients on the trial who were due to have surgery to remove infected tissue, but after using the garlic preparation their wounds healed.”

The healing powers of garlic have been well documented over the centuries.

The ancient Egyptians believed it gave them strength, and in 1858 French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur demonstrated its ability to kill germs.

The bulb was widely used by medics in the First World War.

And in the Second World War it was known as “Russian penicillin” and used when antibiotics were not available.

But it is only recently that scientists have begun to unravel how it works.

Garlic’s healing properties are down to a compound called allicin, which is created only when the clove is damaged and two compounds within the plant come together.

And in the Second World War it was known as “Russian penicillin” and used when antibiotics were not available.

But it is only recently that scientists have begun to unravel how it works.

Garlic’s healing properties are down to a compound called allicin, which is created only when the clove is damaged and two compounds within the plant come together.

But allicin has a very short working life and until recently this made it difficult to use in medicines.

Dr Cutler’s work has focused on a form of stabilised allicin which has been “frozen in time”. It is sold on the High Street as AllicinMAX

Scoliosis sufferer Deborah Brown was the first patient to enrol on the University of East London trial.

Deborah, 38, a probation officer from Rainham , Kent , contracted MRSA after having surgery to place rods in her back to straighten it.

She says: “I was meant to be in hospital for three weeks but I ended up there for 17 weeks.

“The wounds in my back were gross. Pus would ooze through the dressings and soak the sheets. It was horrible.”

Doctors tried everything but eventually sent Deborah home saying there was nothing they could do except remove the rods – but they could not do that for at least 18 months to give her damaged vertebrae time to fuse.

She says: “I spent two years having stuff coming out of my back. I seriously considered taking my life at one point.”

Surprised

Then Deborah’s mother read a news report about Dr Cutler’s experiments and pleaded with him to help.

He admits: “At that time we didn’t even have a cream – we had to make one up.”

Within weeks, Deborah’s wounds began to heal and within 12 weeks she tested clear of MRSA.

She says her doctors, who had initially been sceptical about the experiment, were “very surprised” by the outcome.

Dr Cutler believes allicin could prove equally effective against emerging superbugs which are even more dangerous than MRSA.

In the US , a “community acquired” form of MRSA has already killed fit young people who caught it from gyms and changing rooms.

Then there is VISA, a germ which can withstand all antibiotics.

Dr Cutler explains: “Microbiologists are convinced the community-acquired strain will develop the same sort of resistance as VISA – and when that happens we will be back to the 1930s again.

“Bugs are the best biochemists in the world – they constantly adapt and change their internal structure to become resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

“But resistance is unlikely to be a problem with allicin because it attacks on so many different fronts.”