A team of researchers from Austria report that the lingering smell from garlic-eaters comes not from the plant, but from the chemicals in the blood produced by a change in the body's metabolism. The researchers led by Werner Lindinger found that of the several volatile compounds -- sulphides and disulphides -- in the breath of people up to 30 hours after eating garlic cloves, all but three disappear. And it is the metabolism of these slow movers, allyl methyl sulphide, dimethyl sulphide and acetone, that is associated with the known benefits of garlic, like the lowering of the cholesterol level in blood.
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