Testing Garlic

[charlesjordanjr]

In this month's article, "Garlic: What has been studied versus what has been claimed," you claim that you are going to do your own study. What type of controls do you plan to use?

Obviously, you would have to test the immune system before and after. And see the effects of fresh v. bottled garlic. Also, would you be able to test impact on immunity from ingestion of garlic v injection. I would imagine that just like b12, ingestion would take longer to build within system, but eventually would have a similiar effect as long as there is the capability to absorb it. I don't know if you would have the time, but I would like to see if there is a way to build an immunity in marine fish. Although, I do not know if it possible to become immune to a parasite.

Thanks!
-Chuck

 

[Steven Pro]

There is naturally occurring immunity to parasites. It has been documented in Marine Ich/Cryptocaryon and Marine Velvet/Amyloodinium among others. That is the biggest problem in evaluating whether or not garlic does anything, because of the variability of individual fishes' immune response. That is why for my test I am going to use fish without any previous immunity to Cryptocaryon. I will have four groups of fish: a control which gets no garlic in its food and is not exposed to the parasite, a second control which gets no garlic but is intentionally exposed, an experimental group which has garlic added to its food after spots are evident, and another experimental group which will receive garlic in its food for two weeks prior to exposure to the parasite.

I will only be testing garlic added to foods and not injections as I am primarily interested in garlic's use in the hobby. Very few hobbyists would be willing or able to inject there fishes. Along those same lines, I am only going to test a commercial preparation of garlic extract, not make mine own fresh daily. Again, I am looking at testing real world applications.

I should have the experiment concluded by the end of the year with hopefully the results published shortly thereafter.

 

[charlesjordanjr]

I am excited to see how this turns out. I hope you will be able to find out if Garlic is VooDoo or real. I look forward to hearing about your results!
-Chuck