Garlic and its Organosulfides as Potential Chemopreventive Agents: A Review

There are many biological plausible reasons, which showed that plant food could prevent/delay the appearance of many diseases including cancer. Garlic has been reported to possess therapeutic properties from centuries and is probably the most widely studied medicinal plant. Garlic contains a number of organosulfur compounds such as SAC, S-allyl mercaptocysteine, allicin, ajoene, DAS and other structurally related compounds, which are widely believed to be active agents in preventing cancer. Epidemiological as well as experimental studies have provided sufficient evidences that garlic along with its organosulfur components possess pleiotropic beneficial health effects including antioxidative, antimutagenic and anti-tumorigenic properties. Keywords: garlic, organosulfur compounds, cancer, antioxidative, antimutagenic, antitumorigenic