Phytochemical Alliin Promotes Balanced Ratio of Gut Microbiota

By Kyle J. Norton

Inflammation is a natural response of the immune system with an aim to protect our body against the foreign micro pathogens which may infect the body tissue.

In the early phase of infection, after receiving the message from the central nervous system, the white blood cells of the immune first-line defense macrophages stimulate the production of blood palette to the cover the site of tissue damage and injury and inflammatory cytokines to destroy the microorganisms which try to enter the body through the wound.

Depending on the size of the injury, most small tissues damage are healed by itself within a day or weeks. In some cases, stitches may be needed.

However, if the immune system can not drive out all the invader in a period of 3-8 weeks, it will compromise, leading to low-grade inflammation.

Over time, long-term low-grade inflammation may cause tissue damage and alternation of cell DNA, leading to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Gut microbiota is a community of bacteria found in the gut. In a healthy individual, the ratio of good and bad bacterias are balanced. However, if the bad bacteria are overgrowing compared to good bacteria, it may lead to dysbiosis which has been found to induce chronic diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, cancer, and autism. 

Most common risk factors associated with the imbalanced ratio of gut microbiota include the use of antibiotics, illness, stress, aging, bad dietary habits, and lifestyle. 

In other words, if you follow a healthy diet with a high in vegetables and fruits and fewer in processed foods, saturated and trans fat and red meat accompanied by moderate exercise, you may have done a job to protect the balance of gut microbiota.

Alliin (S-allyl-L-cysteine-S-oxide) is a phytochemical compound sulfoxide,. a derivative of the amino acid cysteine, belongings to the class of sulfur compounds, found abundantly in fresh garlic and onion.

With an aim to find a potential compound for the protection of gut microbiota, researchers examined the effect of alliin (S-allyl-L-cysteine sulfoxide (ACSO)) on plasma ethanol concentration due to alcohol intake by accelerating ethanol metabolism and preventing ethanol absorption from the gut in rats.

Injection of high ACSO content (Garlic-H) suppressed elevation in concentrations of ethanol and acetaldehyde in plasma in the experimental rats without affecting much of the plasma acetate.

Furthermore, the inhibition of alcohol ethanol was attributed to the activity of alliin in the promotion of the activities of alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase, a group of enzymes that catalyze the oxidation of aldehydes.

Compared to the absorption of ethanol from the stomach and jejunum, alliin ACSO and Garlic-H suppressed the absorption of ethanol from the stomach and jejunum, but the suppression in the jejunum was less than in the stomach.

In other words, alliin protects the gut microbiota by inhibiting ethanol absorption and accelerating ethanol metabolism.

In dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis mice and lipopolysaccharide-stimulated RAW264.7 cell model, oral administration of alliin at 500 mg/kg significantly inhibited the decrease of body weight, improved the DAI and decreased the infiltration of inflammatory cells in colonic tissues.

The levels of pro-inflammatory expressions and pro-inflammation activation proteins in the gut and content of NO, MDA, and MPO of gut stress markers were also inhibited by the injection alliin.

Based on the findings, researchers wrote, "Our results show that alliin ameliorates DSS-induced ulcerative colitis and inhibits the inflammatory responses in LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells partly".

Taken altogether, alliin may be considered supplements for the prevention and treatment of gut microbiota imbalanced as seen in colitis patients, pending on the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of alliin in the form of supplement should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) S-Allyl-L-cysteine sulfoxide, a garlic odor precursor, suppresses elevation in blood ethanol concentration by accelerating ethanol metabolism and preventing ethanol absorption from gut by Uto-Kondo H1, Hase A2, Yamaguchi Y2, Sakurai A2, Akao M2, Saito T3, Kumagai H. (PubMed)
(2) Alliin, a garlic organosulfur compound, ameliorates gut inflammation through MAPK-NF-κB/AP-1/STAT-1 inactivation and PPAR-γ activation by Shi L1, Lin Q1, Li X2, Nie Y1, Sun S1, Deng X3, Wang L1, Lu J1, Tang Y1, Luo F. (PubMed)