Open Access

Association and mechanism of garlic consumption with gastrointestinal cancer risk: A systematic review and meta‑analysis

  • Authors:
    • Yangyang Wang
    • Ping Huang
    • Yufei Wu
    • Duanrui Liu
    • Mingyu Ji
    • Huanjie Li
    • Yunshan Wang
  • View Affiliations

  • Published online on: February 17, 2022     https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2022.13245
  • Article Number: 125
  • Copyright: © Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Abstract

Gastrointestinal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancer type worldwide, with millions of cases per year. The aim of this review was to investigate the relationship between garlic intake and the risk reduction of gastrointestinal cancer. We performed saturated data mining on various public domain databases, including PubMed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/), Embase (https://www.embase.com/landing?status=grey), and Cochrane Library (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/), with key terms including: ‘garlic’, ‘allium’, ‘stomach’, ‘gastric’, ‘colon’, ‘neoplasms’, ‘cancer’ and ‘tumor’. Furthermore, we identified additional references through expert manual curation. Finally, a meta‑analysis was conducted to determine whether garlic intake reduces the risk of gastric and/or colorectal cancer. The association between garlic intake and reduction in the risk of gastric cancer [odds ratio (OR)=0.65, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.49‑0.87, P<0.001] were clear. Nine studies on garlic intake and colorectal cancer showed that garlic reduced cancer risk with a statistical significance (OR=0.75, 95% CI=0.65‑0.87, P<0.001). We summarized that four main organic sulfides in garlic, diallyl disulfide (DADS), diallyl trisulfide (DATS), S‑allylmercaptocysteine (SAMC) and allicin, may contribute to the regulation of tumor cell apoptosis, migration and the cell cycle. We identified the association between garlic intake and reduced risk of gastric and colorectal cancers and hypothesized that the active ingredients in garlic may act on multiple pathways to reduce the risk of gastrointestinal tumors according to published papers. Importantly, the potential tumor‑preventing effect of these garlic ingredients warrants further investigation in regards to the specific mechanism of the underlying antitumor activities.
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April-2022
Volume 23 Issue 4

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Copy and paste a formatted citation
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Spandidos Publications style
Wang Y, Huang P, Wu Y, Liu D, Ji M, Li H and Wang Y: Association and mechanism of garlic consumption with gastrointestinal cancer risk: A systematic review and meta‑analysis. Oncol Lett 23: 125, 2022
APA
Wang, Y., Huang, P., Wu, Y., Liu, D., Ji, M., Li, H., & Wang, Y. (2022). Association and mechanism of garlic consumption with gastrointestinal cancer risk: A systematic review and meta‑analysis. Oncology Letters, 23, 125. https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2022.13245
MLA
Wang, Y., Huang, P., Wu, Y., Liu, D., Ji, M., Li, H., Wang, Y."Association and mechanism of garlic consumption with gastrointestinal cancer risk: A systematic review and meta‑analysis". Oncology Letters 23.4 (2022): 125.
Chicago
Wang, Y., Huang, P., Wu, Y., Liu, D., Ji, M., Li, H., Wang, Y."Association and mechanism of garlic consumption with gastrointestinal cancer risk: A systematic review and meta‑analysis". Oncology Letters 23, no. 4 (2022): 125. https://doi.org/10.3892/ol.2022.13245