Garlic as a Tick Repellent

A double‐blinded, placebo‐controlled trial of garlic as a mosquito repellant: a preliminary study

“…This study describes a placebo‐controlled, double‐blinded trial to determine whether there is any validity to the widely held belief that the ingestion of garlic provides some protection against blood‐feeding mosquitoes in humans. A previous study, to determine whether chronic ingestion of garlic provides protection against ticks, has been criticized on methodological grounds (Stjernberg & Berglund, 2000; McHugh, 2001; Ranstam, 2001; Tunon, 2001). The study design here sought to address some of those flaws.…”

“…A greater number of the participants were bitten by ticks during placebo consumption. This study has been criticized on methodological grounds (McHugh, 2001; Ranstam, 2001; Tunon, 2001). It has been pointed out that the investigators took no caution to insure that the two groups did not consume garlic in the diet (thus confounding the division between the placebo and the non‐placebo group), that the tick feeding was entirely self reported and therefore poorly documented, and that the difference between the two was only in the ‘per‐protocol’ analysis and not in the ‘intention to treat’ analysis.…”

Der Knoblauch (Allium sativum)

“…Knoblauchextrakt (hier Diallyltrisulfid = Allitridin) vermag im Mäusemodell die Immunantwort der infizierten Tiere in Richtung Th1 zu lenken, sodass diese das Virus wirksam bekämpfen können. Die Wirksamkeit entspricht dem Ganciclovir [8].…”

Prevention of Lyme Disease and Other Tick-Borne Infections

“…Other repellants such as garlic, eucalyptus oil and citronella based products have been tested only against mosquitoes and are inferior to DEET and picaridin [18, 19]. Except for known toxicities in children where high concentrations may cause seizures, DEET containing products have had a good safety record.…”