Dr Sakai Odorless Garlic . . . . . .

A team of researchers at the University of Innsbruck used proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry to measure a number of sulfides present in the breath of garlic eaters. Their work was first reported in The New Scientist in January 1997:

Science : The good thing about garlic breath
25 January 1997
From New Scientist Print Edition.
David Bradley

GARLIC has long been considered a natural medicine and has been shown tolower levels of cholesterol in the blood, but researchers disagree over the metabolic mechanisms involved.

Now a team at the University of Innsbruck in Austria has discovered that the lingering smell on the breath of garlic-eaters comes not from the plant itself, but from chemicals in the blood produced by a change in the body's metabolism. The researchers suggest that this could be the secret of garlic's efficacy.

Werner Lindinger and his colleagues analysed the volatile organic compounds in the breath of people up to 30 hours after they had eaten garlic cloves. They found that levels of most of the strong-smelling sulfides and disulfides, which are given off by freshly crushed garlic, fell within a few hours of eating. But three compounds—allyl methyl sulfide, dimethyl sulfide and acetone—took much longer to reach their peak levels and were still present at high levels even after 30 hours.

Lindinger believes that these high levels were the result of metabolic changes brought about by the garlic. Acetone is a known degradation product of numerous fatty compounds in the blood, including cholesterol.

He points out that the amount of acetone given off by crushed garlic (10 parts per billion) is far less than the peak levels in the breath a day after eating garlic (more than 5 parts per million) (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol 44, p 3778).

From issue 2066 of New Scientist magazine, 25 January 1997, page 14

The abstract is reproduced here from J. Agric. Food Chem., 44 (12), 3778 -3782, 1996

Johann Taucher, Armin Hansel, Alfons Jordan, and Werner Lindinger*

Institut für Ionenphysik, Leopold Franzens Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 25, A 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

Received for review August 27, 1996. Accepted August 30, 1996.

After ingestion of raw garlic, the components allyl methyl sulfide (1), allyl methyl disulfide (2), diallyl sulfide (3), diallyl disulfide (4), diallyl trisulfide (7), dimethyl sulfide (8), and acetone (9) in the breath of a test person were analyzed over a time period of about 30 h by means of proton-transfer-reaction mass spectrometry. While the concentrations of 2-7 reached maxima shortly after ingestion of garlic and declined to baseline values within the next 2-3 h, concentrations of 1, 8, and 9 increased much more slowly and showed enhanced values even 30 h after garlic consumption. The strong increase of the concentration of acetone might be indicative of enhanced metabolism of serum cholesterol, triglycerides, and total lipids in the blood stream.

Copyright © 1996 American Chemical Society