EFFECTIVENESS OF GARLIC ON THE RADICAL ACTIVITY IN RADICAL GENERATINGSYSTEMS

The radical scavenging capacity of garlic (allium sativum) has been in vestigated in vitro in radical generating systems by electron paramagn etic resonance (EPR) and low-level chemiluminescence measurements. Gar lic (both the homogenate of 10% in physiological saline solution and i ts supernatant) was able to reduce the radicals generated by the Fento n reaction and trapped by phenyl-butyl-nitron for EPR measurements. Al so radicals present in cigarette smoke could be reduced by garlic as j udged from chemiluminescence in the presence of tert.-butyl-hydroperox ide. According to the in vitro measurements garlic contains substances which have significant radical scavenging capacity.