Current studies and potential future research directions on biological effects and related mechanisms of allicin

Abstract

Allicin, a thiosulfonate extract from freshly minced garlic, has been reported to have various biological effects on different organs and systems of animals and human. It can reduce oxidative stress, inhibit inflammatory response, resist pathogen infection and regulate intestinal flora. In addition, dozens of studies also demonstrated allicin could reduce blood glucose level, protect cardiovascular system and nervous system, and fight against cancers. Allicin was widely used in disease prevention and health care. However, more investigations on human cohort study are needed to verify the biological or clinical effects of allicin in the future. In this review, we summarized the biological effects of allicin from previous outstanding and valuable studies and provided useful information for future studies on the health effects of allicin.

Keywords:

• Allicin
• biological effects
• garlic
• mechanisms

Acknowledgments

All authors read and approved the final manuscript. We would like to thank all the participants for their contribution to this study. All references for Tables 1–9 are in supplementary material.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72061137006 from Prof. Qi Wang) and CNS Research Fund for DRI (from Prof Liegang Liu and Wei Yang).