Garlic extract was found to be effective against antimicrobial-resistant urinary tract infections in a recent study published in the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science.
Researchers from the Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences in India studied how the garlic extract allium sativum affected the antibiotic susceptibility of the bacteria strains isolated from the urine of people with a UTI.
All total, the researchers evaluated 166 uropathogens for antibiotic susceptibility. They found more than half (56 percent) of the bacteria strains demonstrated a high-degree of resistance to antibiotics. Meanwhile, approximately 82 percent of the antibiotic resistant bacteria were susceptible to a crude aqueous extract of garlic.
"It is interesting to note that even crude extracts of this plant showed good activity against multidrug-resistant strains where antibiotic therapy had limited or no effect," wrote the study authors. "This provides hope for developing alternative drugs which may be of help in fighting the menace of growing antibacterial resistance."
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