Garlic, Vitamin C & Potential Cancer Protection

How do you assess your risk for cancer? How do you assess the protective anti-cancer compounds in your body? What if you could assess some basic markers without drawing blood? That's just what new research is promising.

According to an Ohio State press release on research published in Analytical Biochemistry:

“'What we were after was developing a method where we could measure in urine two different compounds, one related to the risk for cancer, and the other, which indicates the extent of consumption of garlic,' said Earl Harrison, Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Human Nutrition at Ohio State, an investigator in Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, and senior author of the study.'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.'”

The study showed that while 5 grams of garlic had the best results, vitamin C produced a similar level of protective compounds in urine samples that were tested. So, if you like garlic, live it up, eat as much as you want (or as much as your partner will let you get away with eating). If you don't like garlic, stick to vitamin C.