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Patent : Garlic for treating genital and oral herpes

A method of treatment of herpes simplex virus is to treat a patient with garlic or garlic-based preparation such as healthy food mixture containing garlic extract or active ingredient of 'garlic. The treatment may be carried out either orally or by topical application, and the processing delay and minimizes the symptoms of the virus, and increase the time interval between recurrences of viral access.

Background

Acyclovir has been approved in both atopical and oral form by the FDA and is now available with a prescription. When applied topically in initial or primary genital herpes in males and females, the drug has been observed to reduce the duration of viral shedding, hasten the resolution of lesions, and decrease other symptoms. In the form of oral administration, when one Acyclovir capsule (200 mg) was given five times a day for five days, the duration of viral activity, the time of crusting and healing of lesions, and the formation of new lesions were reduced.

When taken daily for up to six months (the manufacturer states that it is not advisable to take it for more than six months), it can prevent or reduce recurrences during the period of therapy, but not thereafter. The most common problem in herpes sufferers is still the frequency of recurring genital herpes, which may be disabling to the patients.

After extended use, acyclovir is considered toxic so there must remain periods when the drug is not used to avoid a toxicity overload. During these periods, all of the normal problems and symptoms of genital herpes return.

Accordingly, there exists a need for a method of treating "genital and oral herpes simplex virus that is natural, non-toxic, reduces the duration of viral shedding, decreases other symptoms, and increases the time between, or eliminates, recurrences.

It has been found that the oral or topical application of garlic or a preparation thereof acts to markedly inhibit the outbreak of genital herpes virus.

Garlic Alternative
Kyolic, manufactured by the Wakanuga Company of Japan, is used as a health food supplement and is taken regularly by hundreds of individuals in many parts of the world. Preliminary in vitro studies in tissue culture of Herpes Simplex Virus 2 (HSV2) strain isolated from a human patient suffering from genital herpes showed that the addition of kyolic after absorption of virus into the cells caused a definite decrease in the production of HSV2 for the next three days at various concentrations of kyolic.

The effect of pure garlic in reducing the concentration of virus is dramatic. Figure 1 shows a typical HSV2 growth pattern over a period of several days. In contrast. Figure 2 shows the HSV2 growth pattern when the cell cultures are treated with low and high concentrations of garlic. The marked difference can readily be seen.

Further studies were performed using experimental animals. Genital herpes infection has been successfully established and extensively studied in female guinea pigs following intravaginal inoculation. Because of the herpetic lesions on the external genitalia of guinea pigs and intermittently recurring infection in this animal species and because cytologic smears taken from genitally herpes infected guinea pigs show similarities to those observed in Pap smears taken from women with herpes genital infection, guinea pigs are the most commonly used animal models in the study of the pathogenesis of herpes genital infection. Preliminary studies on the toxicity of kyolic showed no toxicity in guinea pigs over a period of two weeks when administered orally and/or. topically. Thereafter, nine guinea pigs were infected with HSV2. Eight of the guinea pigs were treated with kyolic — four as soon as the infection was induced and four after vaginal lesions appeared. One guinea pig was not treated and served as a control.

Five guinea pigs were treated with kyolic by oral administration of 0.2 ml and by topical administration and the two others received no treatment. Vaginal swabs were collected four times daily from each of the animals for a period of twelve days and virus content was determined by plaque assay using tissue culture. Peak shedding of herpes virus amongst the control group occurred on day 4 and virus was detected in the lesions up until day 9. By contrast, in the kyolic treated animals, virus shedding was delayed by one day while peak shedding occurred on day 4, the same day as with the control group. The amount of virus shedding, however, was only 1% of that in the control group (100 infection units versus 10,000 infection units) . In addition, the duration of the shedding period was reduced so that it ended on day 7. Thus the total shedding period for the treated guinea pigs was only six days as compared to nine days for the control guinea pigs. It was also observed that the size of the lesions was markedly reduced in the treated animals.

While in vivo studies involving humans have not been completed at the present time, preliminary observation in a few patients confirms the usefulness of kyolic and garlic as a treatment for herpes sufferers. For example, Case L.S., a 44 year old white female, during her first visit, complained that for one year, she had suffered from herpes lesions on her labia minora and buttocks. These lesions broke out approximately every month, either before mensis or when she was under stress. Laboratory culture proved that she had Herpes Type II virus. She was treated with 16 ml. of kyolic per day for one week and 8 ml. per day thereafter. Kyolic was also painted on the lesions externally when there was an outbreak. During the first three months of treatment, new lesions sometimes broke out in less than one month intervals, but after three months the interval of recurrence prolonged to a month and a half, and after six months the interval prolonged to three and a half months. Patient discontinued kyolic treatment after one year and three months and has remained symptom free for at least six months thereafter without treatment.