 In ancient Greece, the art of medicine was divided into three areas, cures through diet, cures through drugs, and cures through surgery. Garlic, Apocrates wrote, was one such medicinal food, but that was to treat a non-existent entity called displacement of the womb, so ancient wisdom can only go so far. Those who eat more than a clover day do seem to have better artery functions, those who eat less than a clover day, but you don't know if it's caused an effect until you put it to the test. Hard disease patients were randomized to receive either garlic powder or placebo tablets twice daily for three months, and those lucky enough to be in the garlic group got a significant boost in their artery function, a 50% increase in function taking only 800 milligrams of garlic powder a day. That's just a quarter teaspoon of garlic powder, a 50% increase in artery function for less than a penny a day. If regular plain boring garlic powder can do that, what about those fancy chaiolic aged garlic extract supplements, 30 times more expensive, and they don't work at all, four weeks and zero significant improvement. It's hard to improve on mother nature. Garlic powder can improve the function of arteries, but what about the structure of arteries? Dozens of studies on garlic all compile together show garlic can reduce cholesterol levels in the blood by more than 16 points, so might garlic powder be able to actually slow the progress of atherosclerosis? Garlic powder tablet versus placebo for three months. The placebo group got worse, which is what tends to happen to eat the same artery-clogging diet and your arteries continue to clog, but the progression of the disease appeared to slow and stall in the garlic group. Of course, it'd be nice to see the artery wall thickening actually reverse, but for that one might have to add more plants than just garlic to one's diet. Still though, that same quarter teaspoon of a simple spice available anywhere may be considered as an adjunct treatment for atherosclerosis, the number one killer of both men and women in the United States and around much of the world. What about garlic for high blood pressure? Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized control trials demonstrating garlic has a statistically significant and clinically meaningful effect on both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Reducing the top number by nearly 7, the bottom number by about 5 may not sound like a lot, but reducing diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, by 5 points can reduce the risk of stroke by about a third and heart disease by 25%. Plant-based medicine can provide beneficial effects with little or no side effects, and compared to other medicine, relatively cost-effective. I'd say so at as little as a penny per day.