Terry Perkins of Houston, Texas, has been suffering from health problems for some ten years. One of his chief worries has been his high blood pressure. Terry says, “My blood pressure is up. This is because of my weight, which I’m trying to do something about, but my doctor also said the high blood pressure appears in family history. I’ve been on one medication for eight years.

“It was always frustrating,” Terry continues. “I was put on one medication, then another one was added, then the amounts I was supposed to take changed. My blood pressure was always fluctuating; it was never the same.”

Terry’s cardiovascular problems eventually led to two surgeries for clogged arteries. After the second surgery, a friend introduced him to something new; a type of garlic known as alpine wild garlic.

Terry remembers that taking this simple step made a difference. “I started taking the garlic,” Terry says, “and my blood pressure levels began to stop fluctuating; they leveled out.”

This was two years ago, and Terry has remained true to using supplements. He is now using a variety of supplements—including AIMCellSparc 360™, AIMPrepZymes™, and AIMBarleygreen™—and as for his health—“It’s going great.”

Garlic has a long history as an herb that maintains health, and today, science is beginning to confirm many of its health properties, including its ability to maintain healthy blood pressure levels. Of particular interest to many researchers is the type of garlic Terry is using—alpine wild garlic.

Alpine wild garlic comes from Allium ursinum, while the garlic used in most garlic supplements, and which we buy in the store, is Allium sativum. Although they are from the same family, there are notable differences.

According to Dallas Clouatre, Ph.D., a researcher, writer, nutritional consultant, and author of Alpine Wild Garlic, garlic is generally recognized as effective in cases of mild hypertension (high blood pressure), and alpine wild garlic may be the top garlic in this respect. Clouatre notes that “alpine wild garlic reduces blood pressure through three different mechanisms. It contains twice the content of ajoenes and g-glutamyl peptides—two sets of blood pressure-lowering compounds—as regular garlic.”

Clouatre and Harry Preuss, M.D., have teamed up to do research with A. ursinum, and its positive effects on blood pressure are born out in animal studies. Clouatre notes that “in the research Dr. Preuss and I did, we found that the alpine wild garlic did have a substantial effect on blood pressure. In our animal studies, blood pressure dropped 20 to 30 millimeters, which is very significant.”

Clouatre and Preuss also compared alpine wild garlic with other types of garlic, including those with high allicin content. Allicin is thought by many to be the major “health-giving” substance found in garlic. Clouatre notes that although “all types of garlic lowered blood pressure, on a weight basis, the alpine wild garlic did a better job—it was definitely better than the two other garlics that we examined.”

Although many people are using alpine wild garlic for its healthy effect on blood pressure levels, it has many other benefits.

According to Clouatre, “both garlic and onion have long been known to lower elevated blood sugar levels while improving insulin levels and increasing liver glycogen levels. This effect in regular garlic is usually attributed to the allicin content. However, it has been shown that S-methylcysteine sulphoxide—which is three times as common in alpine wild garlic as in regular garlic—is one of the active hypoglycemics found in onions.”

Clouatre also notes that garlic may be able to lower elevated serum cholesterol levels. He says that “Contemporary studies have indicated that the effects of allicin in lowering cholesterol are highly dependent on the availability of adenosine to the system. Alpine wild garlic is quite high in biologically active adenosine, containing 20 times as much as regular garlic. In our study, we found evidence that the alpine wild garlic raised the HDL cholesterol, the ‘good cholesterol,’ on a weight basis.”

And, of course, most of us are aware of the claims that garlic can enhance the immune system. This holds true with alpine wild garlic as well. Clouatre says that “alpine wild garlic appears to activate macrophages, which are important components of the immune system. They surround pathogens and sweep away worn-out cells.”

Users find one final advantage to alpine wild garlic. Although not a “health” advantage, the fact that it is odorless means a lot to those who have had to suffer through a strong garlic smell. Clouatre credits this to the fact that alpine wild garlic contains chlorophyll, because the leaf, not the bulb, of the plant is used.

“When you take regular garlic, the oil-soluble principles cause an accumulation of odorous elements within the body, and eventually the body is saturated and the odors seep out through the pores and breath. But alpine wild garlic is naturally odorless when taken by mouth. This is partially because it contains natural chlorophyll, while regular garlic contains none. This chlorophyll helps eliminate breath odor.”

Allium ursinum has a long history. It was known to the early Celts and to the ancient Romans, who considered it well-suited for cleansing the blood and stomach. The Greek physician Dioscorides also discussed this type of garlic, which is known as wild garlic.

Wild garlic came into its own in medieval Europe. German medicinal handbooks from this period contrasted and compared wild garlic with the domesticated Allium sativum, and state that the wild garlic is superior. It was used for parasites and for lung and heart problems. Wild garlic was so important for health that the famous ruler Charlemagne decreed that people should attempt to raise it. (This idea was not successful.) An Old English proverb also relates wild garlic’s importance: "Eat leeks in Lide and ransoms in May, And all the year after the physicians may play." This simply says that if you eat ransoms (wild garlic) in the spring, your health problems will go away, and your physician will have nothing to do but play.

Wild garlic was “rediscovered” by Dr. George Pandalis, a German biologist, in 1988. Since then, its benefits have been described with great enthusiasm in a variety of health journals. In fact, it was declared “1992 European Medicinal Plant of the Year” by the Association for the Protection and Research on European Medicinal Plants.