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Brian Vastag

JAMA. 2002;288:1342.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 139 words of the full text and any section headings.

Researchers from Germany report that, in test tubes, garlic prevents formation of "nanoplaques" that can accumulate to cause arteriosclerosis. During a National Institutes of Health workshop on herbs and cardiovascular disease held in Bethesda, Md, in August, Günter Siegel, MD, from the Free University of Berlin, described his team's research, which pinpoints exactly how garlic blunts plaque formation.

In the presence of calcium, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol binds with molecules secreted from the inner lining of the arteries, forming tiny plaques that can accumulate and harden. High-density lipoprotein cholesterol—so-called good cholesterol—inhibits this process by absorbing excess plaque-forming molecules.

Siegel's team found that garlic extract works exactly the same way, but more potently. "In concentrations relevant to man," he said, "garlic extract was two and a half times more effective" in inhibiting plaque formation than was high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

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