Podcast 258: Herbalists’ Views on the Top-Selling Herbs (Part 7): Tribulus, Pycnogenol, Garlic

1 August, 2025

On the top-selling herbs list for 2023 (the most recent data), the herbs in places #19-21 were Tribulus terrestris, Pycnogenol (an extract of Pinus pinaster), and garlic. Today we continue our series on commercially popular herbs, and share our views as herbalists on the actions, benefits, and applications of these ones.

The pine extract is an interesting item, given that it’s not an entry for the herb itself but rather for a specific proprietary extract from one species. It’s true that this extract has been well-studied and shown to exert good effects, but it’s also true that pine is much more than this one product.

Today’s trio also offers an excellent opportunity to apply herbal energetics to help us critique and navigate marketing hype. While tribulus is very popular as a body-building aid, its cooling nature tells us that it is most helpful for those who already run hot. Garlic is the polar opposite of that. While garlic is very famous for its capacity to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, these effects are not as straightforward in a hot, dry, tense body – garlic could cause adverse effects for such a constitution. So, looking through the lens of herbal energetics remains one of our best methods for matching the right herb to the right person.

19. Tribulus – Tribulus terrestris

20. Pycnogenol® – Pinus pinaster

21. Garlic – Allium sativum

Previous episodes in this series:

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Episode Transcript

Ryn (00:13):
Hi, I’m Ryn. And I’m here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts and on the internet everywhere, thanks to the power of the podcast. All right. So, today I’m continuing on the series about herbalists’ perspectives on the top-selling herbs, herbs of commerce, herbs that are on the shelves, on Amazon, places like that. Taken by lots and lots of people, popular herbs, popular remedies. But oftentimes pigeonholed or put into a tiny little box in the commercial context. Take this herb for this problem but not really understanding or expanding on all of the possibilities that those plants have to offer. So, this is part seven in the series. If you haven’t heard the others, they’re back in the feed. Just scroll down a bit, and you’ll come across them. We’ve profiled a bunch of cool plants so far. Today we’re going to be talking about Tribulus, Tribulus terrestris. We’re going to be talking about pycnogenol, which is not the name of a plant. This is the name of a specific extract from a species of pine. So, we’ll dig into that one a little bit. And then we’re also going to talk about garlic. So, today’s a little bit of an odd episode because two of these are not things that I really work with myself. But I do have some things to share with you and some ideas for you. So, we’re going to dive right in.

Ryn (01:32):
First, I just want to remind you that I’m not a doctor. I’m an herbalist, and I’m a holistic health educator. The ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the US. So, these discussions are for educational purposes only. We want to remind you that good health doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn’t exist as one objective standard. It’s influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, I’m not attempting to present a single, dogmatic, right way that you must adhere to. Everyone’s body is different. So, the things that we’re talking about here may or may not apply directly to you. But the hope is that they’ll give you some new information to think about and some new ideas to research and to experiment with further. Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. This doesn’t mean you’re alone on the journey, and it doesn’t mean that you’re to blame for your current state of health. But it does mean that the final decision, when you’re considering any course of action, whether it was discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that’s always your choice to make. All right.

#19: Tribulus: A Cooling Plant With Claims of Performance Enhancement

Ryn (02:40):
So, in order that we can make more informed choices about herbs we might find out there in the commercial world, let’s learn a little bit about Tribulus. So, this one came in at number 19 on the bestsellers list. We’re almost halfway through, right? There’s 40 items on that list. So, we’re getting through the halfway point today. Tribulus is also known by a couple of other names. It’s called puncture vine. It’s called caltrop. And it has a name from the Ayurvedic tradition, gokshura. So, most of these names refer to the fruit of the plant because it’s kind of the most distinctive feature. And you should check out a picture of it. It’s this spiky, pointy thing. And, you know, caltrop is a name for something that is metal spikes that kind of point out in directions. Kind of like jacks, you know, if you play that game with the bouncing the ball, and you pick up the metal jacks and everything. Kind of like those but really sharp, and big, and pointy. And these would be used to deter cavalry from riding down the road to where you’re at. You’d scatter them on the ground, and they’ll puncture the hooves, and or in the modern world pop the tires, right? So anyway, tribulus has really pointy, spiny fruits on it, and that catches your attention. Those part are the main medicinal part, the main part that’s harvested, and extracted, and worked with. But sometimes roots are also a part of herbal medicine for this plant, particularly in traditional practices. And I did see some products when I was digging through this info where they are also advertising that they do use the entire aerial part of the plant. I think that’s a little suspect from a traditional medicine perspective. It may not be the best idea, but we did see that happen.

Ryn (04:24):
This is a plant that is primarily drying in nature. It has a strong, tonifying quality to it. And it also has a good reputation for cooling qualities as well. So, cooling, drying, tonifying, those are the three key features there. Which is kind of interesting because you often expect an herb that is famed for helping with performance, and output, and sexual activity, and burning fat, and all of that, you often expect those to be hot herbs. Those are claims that people have made through various times and places about cayenne, and about ginger, and yeah, about garlic, which we’ll come to later on. But here we have this herb, which has kind of a cooling impression. But it does have a very strong, at least contemporary market presentation as an herb that will help you to burn fat and get ripped. So, I’m rolling my eyes a little bit at that because I tend to whenever people make a claim like that about herbs, or herbal extracts, or supplements. Because it doesn’t tend to be true, at least not in the way most people understand it when they first see those words. So, one of the students in our clinical mentorship training right now commented about this plant. Some gym friends of mine have used tribulus as a testosterone booster, quote-unquote, although it’s a little less popular now. It seems like recently shilajit has taken over as the trending testosterone and energy boosting plant. So, I wanted to pass that quote on to you because I think that’s a nice little snapshot of both this specific plant and the current state of hype or 15 minutes of fame that it’s having in the kind of gym world.

Ryn (06:07):
But also this is just a general trend. These things come and go. It’s horny goat weed this day. And then it’s tribulus this day. And then it’s shilajit after that. And people are always looking for something like this. Something that will amp up your metabolism, give you boundless energy, spike your testosterone, burn your fat for you, you know? And so all those kind of claims are really heavily applied to tribulus products. When you go and look at Amazon, or you look at a marketer for this kind of an extract, it’s all going to be pictures of big, bulging muscles, and people who are working out real hard, and looking beautiful, and all of that kind of stuff. So, that’s just the very heavy marketing focus for this one. So, why? Why would that have become the case? What is the basis for those kind of claims? So, we can start with the fact that yeah, the plant does contain some constituents that are in a group we call steroidal saponins. Constituents that are in that group do tend to exert some kind of hormonal effect or at least a hormonally mediated effect in humans. And they’re found in a number of different adaptogenic herbs. There are steroidal saponins in ginseng and jiaogulan. And basically in any of the famous adaptogens you care to name, you’re going to find them there. The category is broad and diverse. There’s many individual different members. But again, many of them do have some effect on our hormones, our endocrine organs. With the adaptogens in general, the focus there is going to be through the HPA axis, the organs of the stress response, and things like that.

Ryn (07:43):
This particular plant tribulus, the site of action for its steroidal saponin compounds does seem to be more, yeah, targeted to the reproductive system in particular. So, there has been a pursuit of this, right? And as often happens when people who are looking at herbs from a commercial or a pharmacological perspective, as often happens in such cases, this herb has been standardized, or it has been extracted. And the extract has been customized or manipulated in such a way as to amplify the levels of those steroidal saponins, right? Nothing unusual there. This does happen with ginseng products. It happens with a variety of things. I think a couple weeks ago we were talking about saw palmetto, and how there it’s not at all uncommon for saw palmetto extracts to be standardized at 90% of their sterile content. It’s a somewhat related group. But in any case, the standardization in tribulus extracts often goes quite, quite far to that level, right? So, there is a very popular and very famous extract of tribulus called Tribestan, which is standardized at about 45% saponins, or that’s the minimum that they guarantee you’re going to get. That particular extract has been studied multiple times. It’s been the subject of a number of different scientific investigations. Most of those have been focused on male sexual function, so impotence, and sexual health, quality of life, and things like that. Generally positive results by the way. Not all tribulus products standardize the same way though. If you go and glance at Amazon, you’ll find that some of them are out here advertising 95% saponin content. So, at that point to my perspective that’s less an herbal preparation, or a standard, or a normal herbal extract. And it’s moving further and further in that direction of the nutraceutical, or the phytopharmaceutical, or something like that.

It’s Not Always Related to Testosterone & Herbal Traditions

Ryn (09:51):
But they’re popular. Lots of people like them. Lots of people buy them. One thing I want to point out here is that there’s often this assumption that if we have somebody take this supplement, and they report more libido. They report improvements in athletic performance or benefits like that. Or maybe even some weight loss, and big asterisk on that one, right? When people report benefits like that, there’s often this assumption oh, you must be doing something to testosterone. You must be amping up your testosterone levels. And that’s why you’re gaining muscle, and burning fat, and feeling sexy, and all of that, right? But the thing is that increasing libido, increasing athletic performance or recovery, it doesn’t always involve an increase in testosterone levels. The herb can easily act on other hormones or through non-hormonal means to achieve those same effects. Some of those actions could be happening because of chemistry in the plant that isn’t even connected to the steroids, the steroidal saponin content there. I think on some level when you tell people oh, this herb contains steroid compounds. Then someone is going to interpret that to mean this is an herbal steroid. This is like taking anabolic steroid drugs to bulk up fast and things like that. And then that gets into the marketing, and that gets into the gym, and that gets into the bro science of it. And it gets passed around like that, you know?

Ryn (11:13):
So, it’s worth saying that extracts of tribulus, including some of these standardized ones, they have been found to have some benefits, right, including in reproductive health. So, for instance, there was a note from the folks over at examine.com who remember, when we’re looking at their website, and we’re looking at herbs, they have good information about supplement forms of herbs. They don’t have very good information about traditional preparation methods or traditional practices with plants. So, here they’re talking about tribulus supplements. And they say that this plant, it’s a plant whose roots and fruits are used in Ayurvedic medicine, ancient Indian medicine and traditional Indian medicine, for male virality and general vitality. It’s also used in traditional Chinese medicine. And it appears to reduce symptoms of sexual dysfunction but not improve testosterone levels in men and women and might also improve metabolic health. So, this is the very sanitized way of pointing toward the things that have been investigated about this plant and the kind of standard claims that are made about it but couching it in careful and reasonable language, right? But you do see that the assessment is that yeah, it can improve some of these problems of sexual dysfunction. Yes. if there’s issues with libido, if there’s issues with erectile function or arousal more generally. Because again, both men and women and non-binary folks as well, we could include them here. They might find some benefit from working with this plant.

Ryn (12:50):
I would like to like kind of broaden the view a little bit though, right, as we usually do in this sequence. And say that when it comes to tribulus, it can also be found to improve related problems that don’t necessarily have to do with sex itself. So, it’s been found to relieve urinary retention issues and swelling of the prostate. So, those you could call them genitourinary problems, but they’re not connected in that direct way to things like your testosterone level, or your libido, or whatever. Tribulus might also, and in several cases has been found to show vasodilatory actions, dilating the blood vessels. That’s going to improve blood circulation. That may be connected to improvements in reproductive health. If we have impotence or erectile dysfunction, which is due to poor circulation, which is due to excessive constriction in the blood vessels, then a vasodilator will help to solve that problem. And again, that may not require any mediation through the actions of testosterone. Okay. We can also look through history and see the ways people have understood, and worked with, and talked about this plant through time. So, when you do that, and you look at starting with ancient herbalists, you know, Dioscorides, the ancient Greek. Or Avicenna, or better said Ibn Sina, the Persian physician who kind of took Greco-Roman medicine, and advanced it to his current age of time, and expanded the materia medica, and developed a lot of the theory a little bit further. An important figure in the history of herbalism.

Ryn (14:32):
So, Ibn Sina also regarded this as primarily an astringent remedy. This was a plant that we would apply to ulcers, swellings, abscesses, spongy gums, hemorrhoids, things like that. That we would make water preparations generally of the herb and apply it for tonifying effects, local astringent activity. When it would be consumed internally, the major effect that was observed in ancient times was the diuretic activity of it, right? There’s that urinary system effect again, and a capacity to prevent or to help resolve kidney stones. So, if you want a real fancy word there that’s antinephrolithic. Antinephrolithic means helping to prevent or to eliminate kidney stones. But I will say that even in the book, The Canon of Medicine, which was Ibn Sina’s primary, major herbal medicine work, we do find a note that tribulus can stimulate sexual desire. So, that’s also been identified and recognized even since ancient times. In the Ayurvedic tradition, gokshura or tribulus is also mentioned for again, broadly genitourinary conditions and acting again there primarily as a diuretic and an astringent. So, if there’s redness, and swelling, and heat, and itching, and pain on urination, and problems like that, tribulus would be indicated, right? Cooling, drying, tonifying. So, always going back to tissue states, and herbal energetics, and foundational qualities when we’re in ancient herbalism. That’s what was there. That’s what we’ll always have to work with. That’s why it’s the foundation of what we do.

Ryn (16:17):
A little more closer to our time, there is an herbalist named Michael Moore who passed away some years ago but had a long career of practice here in the United States and taught a lot, influenced a lot of other herbalists, authors, teachers. He had a brief discussion of this plant. He considered it to be an anabolic cooler herb. Now it’s worth saying that Michael Moore had kind of his own system of energetics, which was unique to his mind. Others have tried to understand it and pass it on. It always gets a little fuzzy around the edges. But he was essentially trying to say here that this was a plant that can cool down your metabolism. But at the same time it can help with building the structure of the body. So, if we think about reducing heat expressions at the same time as improving your capacity to build muscle on your system, you can kind of see that summed up in that one phrase: anabolic cooler. He also considered this plant to be appropriate for what he called liver excess. And in a somewhat similar way to how Chinese medicine talks about capital L liver, in some cases when Michael Moore is talking about liver excess, it doesn’t have to do only with the liver itself. So, there would be a pattern, again, of heat, usually dampness as well that would match together with that claim. So again, just trying to draw that energetic level of connections between ancient, more modern authors, and then the way that that’s understood today. And you can kind of see how that feeds into, with a little bit of sideways glance, it feeds into the commercialized versions of this herb as well or commercialized perspectives on the herb. Yeah.

#20: Pychogenol: Antioxidant, Anti-Inflammatory & Other Pine Actions

Ryn (18:05):
Okay. So, that’s what I’ve got to say about tribulus. And I think we’ll just go ahead and move right on, and we’ll talk now about pycnogenol. So again, this is kind of an odd member of the group here, right? Most of the herbs on the list of the top 40 bestselling herbs are in fact herbs. They’re plants, or they’re algae, or their mushrooms. But here what we’ve got is something with a little circle R after the name, right? A little registered trademark. So, what’s going on here is that pycnogenol is a specialized or a particular extract made from a species of pine. It’s called Pinus pinaster, and it’s usually referred to as French maritime pine. So, these are pine trees that grow along the French coast and other places of the world that have a similar ecology. So, this extract is focused on a few categories of chemistry from the plant: focused on the procyanidins – It’s connected to anthocyanidins, which you might’ve heard that word before – the bioflavonoids, and other phenolic constituents including polyphenols. So, I think some of those words are probably familiar to you if you’ve got some experience in herbalism. These are categories of constituents that occur in many medicinal plants, not only in the pine tree by any stretch of imagination. But they’re also constituents that have generalized benefits for human health.

Ryn (19:40):
These phenolic constituents, the polyphenols and some related ones here, they’re actually quite similar to some that you may know by name, such as resveratrol. So, resveratrol is more famously found in grape skins. But it’s a similar type of a component as the ones that are being focused on here. Also similar are the other types of polyphenol found in cacao, which are known to contribute to many of its beneficial effects for humans. Yeah. So, just to kind of get you into that affinity group when we’re thinking chemically there. So, pycnogenol, this extract of the French maritime pine bark, it’s promoted primarily as a source of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents there, with the variety of benefits that can have inside of human health and basically working against any problem of inflammation that might be present. So, it gets quite broad, right? There’s also a documented and very clear capacity of this extract or these constituents to improve blood circulation. This is another vasodilatory effect that we’ve got here. Opening up the blood vessels, improving circulation, improving blood movement to the periphery, to the small blood vessels. Which are going to deliver the blood where it needs to go, both to the layers of your skin, but also the internal organs and things like that. So, generally it’s a good thing to have vasodilation. Those effects can in turn contribute to benefits for things like cognition. Better blood flow to your brain enables you to think more clearly. Less inflammation in your brain enables you to think more clearly. Okay.

Ryn (21:24):
Also immune responses, and I want to include allergies there very importantly. Several of the pycnogenol products are kind of oriented towards allergic relief, or that’s part of what they’re going to be promoting. But allergic relief or allergic issues are one expression of immune dysfunction or immune dysregulation. And again, inflammation disrupts these functions. If we can control, reduce, or corral inflammation, we can expect better function over there. It’s a pretty straight line of reasoning in that regard. There’s also been some documented studies and benefits of this for reproductive health, right? It’s a little bit of similarity actually to the tribulus that we were looking at earlier, at least in terms of what people are doing with it, or what they’re turning to it for support with. To our complete lack of surprise, this product has also been promoted for weight loss. There’s a newsletter that comes out every now and then from the American Botanical Council. It’s called Herbal News and Events. And it’s interesting. They have this little section called Media Watch, and they link to these articles and things that are new. It’s like a way to just keep up to date about what’s going on. Not too long ago they had a piece in there. And it’s just a little brief thing, right? But it was a reference to a press release essentially about a study. And it said a clinical trial found that supplementation with a proprietary French maritime pine bark extract, pycnogenol, may help reduce the severity of cellulite. And I just want to say about this that on the one hand, I’m not going to dispute the findings there. If we have somebody who’s coping with cellulite, which can be exacerbated by inflammation. Of course it can be exacerbated by overweight and problems like that as well. Or uneven distribution of fatty tissue on the body can lead to this issue. So, I wouldn’t be surprised to find some improvement there.

Ryn (23:23):
There have been other studies about the pine extract here that have shown improvements in the health of the skin itself, the suppleness, the flexibility, the hydration, and so on. But I would just caution anybody who’s getting worried about cellulite on their body that no, if you start taking this extract, you’re probably not going to see a measurable or a visible change if that’s the only thing you do, right? If it’s part of a comprehensive protocol where we’re talking about movement, and walking every day, and maybe some sun exposure, maybe some other nice emollient for the skin health and for its consistency. Maybe we can make some improvements there. But, you know, often these things get put out in a way that incentivizes people to go and buy the product and start taking it. And it may not have the kind of connection or result that they’re hoping for. So always, and I’ve said this before in this series and other times as well, always be cautious about things that are being targeted to you, and they’re claiming to burn weight or burn fat magically. Or to make all your skin blemishes go away overnight. Take it with several grains of salt and maybe a cup of tea as well. Yeah.

Ryn (24:34):
Now to the herbalist, pine in general, all the Pinus species are going to be very similar and in most cases interchangeable when it comes to herbalism and herbal medicine. So, pine is a warming, and a drying, and tonifying remedy. And the two main parts that we work with actually aren’t the bark but are the needles and the resin. So, pine needles, these are the leaves of the tree. It’s just that pine makes needly ones. So, the needles are pungent and a little bit sour because they’ve got a decent amount of vitamin C content. But they have that aromatic pungency to it. There’s a light movement element that comes through in there. There’s an uplifting, stimulating kind of tonifying, activating effect you get just from the smell alone. And of course, the evergreen quality to it, right? Many of the other evergreens share in these qualities in their aroma, their aroma therapy, things like that. So, there’s a strong respiratory affinity when we work with the needles. And they make a great tea. It’s a fantastic way to take pine, drink it in, get that effect through your digestion. A little bit of warmth, a little bit of circulation, little light tonification there. But then those volatiles are going to move to the lung. They’re going to activate humoral immunity in the lung. They’re going to stimulate a little bit of expectoration for you. So, it’s fantastic as a tea.

Ryn (26:01):
You can also steam with pine needles, right? So, your process can be I gather a whole bunch of fresh pine. I peel it off of the twigs and branches. Throw that into pot of freshly boiled water. And breathe in the steam that rushes up out of there and get that all the way down into your lungs. This is a really, really good respiratory process to go through. And it’s also really good for your skin as well on your face, or if there’s outbreaks going on there. Once you’ve got that pine needle tea made, you can soak in it. You could do a nice foot soak in pine. That can be very soothing and a little bit energizing at the same time. And you can also tincture pine needles. And it’s a nice handy way to carry the pine medicine, the pine extract with you and have it last a good long time. So, that’s quite handy as well. Especially if maybe you’re not lucky like I am. You don’t live around a bunch of pine trees. We basically, Katja and I, we work with pine fresh always. It doesn’t store very well is one issue. We’ve mentioned that in prior episodes. But yeah, the pine needles don’t really store very well. So, it is better if you find a branch while you’re out. Take the whole branch home. Leave the needles on the branch until you’re going to make tea with them, or do your steam, or put them into your tincture bottle, or whatever else.

Working With Pine Resin & A Little Bit of Twig

Ryn (27:20):
So, the other key part of the pine that we work with is the resin. Resin is the word we use. The more technical term would be the exudate, on a chemical level what exudes out of a pine tree if it gets cut or scratched. It includes resins, and gums, and mucilages, and sort of condensed aromatics that are not quite as volatile anymore but still carry a lot of that same activity, being antimicrobial, being immune stimulating. And so these are the effects that pine resin carries through. It infuses really nicely into oil, and you can work with it just like that. But my opinion is that pine resin salve is an absolute must have in any herbal first aid kit. It’s my very favorite thing for minor cuts and wounds. It’s a great agent to put on as a disinfectant in a wound if we want to wrap it up and close it up for the night or something. But it’s a very, very helpful substance to have on hand. Easy to make as well. Collect a bunch of resin. Dissolve it into oil under some heat. Strain it out after that. You’ve got your resin-infused oil now. Put in a bit of wax. It’ll settle, and you’ve got your salve to work with. So yeah, I really like that quite a lot. You can also tincture pine resin itself. You need high-proof alcohol to do that. You need 95% basically. And the product and the effects are really similar to propolis. So, if you enjoy working with propolis as a topical disinfectant or as a systemic immune stimulant, then you could consider pine resin in a very similar way.

Ryn (29:06):
All right. One note though. Since learning about pycnogenol, and this pine bark extract, and all of that, and the kind of locality of some of these particular polyphenol constituents, and bioflavonoids, and so on in the bark layer itself. One thing that Katja and I have started to do, or this was almost a decade ago now, was that when we put our pine needles in for tea, we’re not as rigorous about stripping the needles off of the tiny twigs any longer. Because those twigs have something to offer, right? They have these compounds. They have some other benefits. They have some tannin, some astringency in particular. You can feel it coming through in the flavor, the mouth feel. And so I’m not putting entire branches of pine into the pot or the brewer or whatever. But a little bit of twig and then that big tail of needles on there, that’s the way we’ve been doing it for quite a while now. And it does have a slightly altered flavor, again, a little more stringency to it. But give it a shot if you’ve been doing needle only, like very strict needle only tea. Try it with a little bit of that twig in there. See what you think about it. It seems good.

Ryn (30:27):
In the show notes I’m linking out to a summary from some of the folks over at Herbal Reality. This is a summary and a plain language presentation of one of the studies that was done on pycnogenol about heart health and metabolic health as well. I think that’s a nice breakdown, and it’s a good example of the way this product is studied and how that feeds into its marketing presentation. We did a nice profile on this podcast about pine in episode 205. So, I’ll link that. And if you love pine, you might also like to get a nice wallpaper image that Katja put together for you for your phone or your desktop. So, I’ve got a link to that as well. All right.

#21 Garlic: Cardiovascular/Immune Support & Supplement Versions

Ryn (31:15):
So, let’s move on to garlic. Like I said before, garlic is just a very powerful plant, a very important herb, and one that has a very, very long history in a number of different medicinal traditions all around the world. So, we’ll come back to that in a moment, but let’s talk about where we are today. So, in commercial herbalism today, garlic is marketed and sold primarily with a focus on cardiovascular health and to some extent on immune health purposes. So, that’ll look like supports cardiovascular health, supports healthy cholesterol levels already in the normal range. They have to use that whole phrase if they want to make a statement like that. This has to do with some of the rules around what you are and are not allowed to say on your products, what kind of claims and promotions you’re allowed to make. So, you’re not allowed to say lowers cholesterol just as blanket statement. But if you say supports healthy cholesterol already within normal range, then that is allowed in certain circumstances. You can feel how these are two very closely related statements. But there’s just a little bit of holding back or reservation that’s framed up in that second one. I am starting to see garlic products that are advertised for their capacity to improve blood sugar levels as well. I think that simply reflects a broader trend toward supplements marketing around that issue and people searching for products to help them with that issue. Not to say that garlic can’t help, but it’s certainly not the first herb that leaps to mind or the strongest herb for those purposes.

Ryn (32:56):
All right. I want to talk about a couple of particular garlic presentations that you’re going to find out there. So, the first one is deodorized garlic. The basic version here is that deodorized garlic supplements are never going to be as effective as one that has not been deodorized, right? What happened here was simply that the garlic was allowed to age or to sit around for a while during the production process. And when you do that, what happens is that you reduce the presence of the compounds that give it the strongest smell and flavor and the greatest likelihood of causing garlic breath. So, what’s going on here is that in the garlic bulb or the garlic plant, you have two separate or many separate compartments. And some of them hold a compound called alliin, and some of them hold a compound called alliinase. And when the garlic gets crushed, or chopped, or broken, or chewed, or whatever, they blend, and they produce allicin. Allicin is a very sharp, hot, pungent, smelly sulfurous compound. And if you want to maximize that with your garlic, what you do is you crush it or chop it. You give it like 10 or 15 minutes for that conversion to initiate and to take place. And you’re kind of elevating your allicin level until it hits a peak. From that point it continues to transform. And you can kind of imagine that you had a base compound. It gets the alliin, right? It gets transformed into allicin. And then as time goes on, it continues to transform into other related molecules as we go along. But they get less pungent, they get less sulfuric in terms of smell and taste and everything as that time goes.

Ryn (34:41):
So, when they’ve aged the garlic, they’ve just allowed that process to play out further and further. This is kind of like what happens when you cook your garlic. If you cook it for just a moment or two, it’s got that good, sharp, hot flavor to it. If you keep on cooking it, what, it mellows out, right? You start to get a little bit of the sweetness coming through. It’s not as intense anymore, right? So, that’s essentially what happens when they make a deodorized garlic supplement or an aged garlic supplement. Now, this does reduce the beneficial effects of the plant, not all of them, but some of them. If you were for some reason, specifically taking a supplement of garlic to try to combat a gut infection. Like maybe you had H. pylori, and for some reason you decided you were going to fight it with garlic supplements. This is not the best way to do that, okay, just so we’re clear. But if you did, and then you took a deodorized garlic supplement, you would get less of the antimicrobial action of garlic than you would from one that had not been deodorized. Allicin is the most antimicrobial agent that garlic can produce. And so if your focus is killing germs, you want to maximize that. If your focus is otherwise, though. If your focus is more on antioxidant effects. If it’s more about improvements in blood circulation. If it’s more focused on bringing down the cholesterol numbers or that kind of thing. Cooked garlic and aged garlic can still be healthy, they can still be beneficial. But I would absolutely encourage someone to consume cooked garlic before I would ever suggest an odorless garlic supplement. I think it’s the better way to take it.

Ryn (36:17):
All right. Now something similar is going on with black garlic supplements. So, when you look into these, they’ll often say oh, this is fermented. And now you might be thinking about sauerkraut, and kimchi, and other fermented foods, and imagining that that’s what’s going on. Okay, they put this into a solution with the right pH and acidity to encourage microbes to grow in there, friendly microbes, the ones we want. And then they did a fermentation process, and the microbes transformed it somehow. But that’s not actually what’s going on here. This is one of those uses of the word ferment that is kind of like what people mean when they talk about black tea. And how you take the green tea, and you go through a quote fermentation process, and you end up with black tea. Where really it’s just a matter of exposing the substance – in that case the tea, in this case the garlic – to carefully controlled levels of heat and humidity, right? So, you don’t want it to rot, but you do want to initiate those changes, right? That amount of heat, that proper level of humidity actually starts to caramelize the garlic, just like what would happen if you heat it up gently in a pan. And so anyway, that’s where the black color comes from. It’s a slow process like that. So, this process does also reduce the allicin content again, by converting it to other forms. And the people who sell black garlic or black garlic supplements will tell you that one of those transformation forms called S-allyl cysteine or SAC is quote-unquote a more potent antioxidant. Hmm, that sounds really appealing, right? And maybe you look at it, and you’re like well, I obviously want to get the most potent antioxidants I can. Why would I waste my time with mild antioxidants? That sounds stupid, right?

Ryn (38:03):
The thing is that claims about antioxidant potency are contentious. And in my opinion, they’re largely overstated and misconstrued kind of at the same time. The way we understand antioxidants now in 2025 is actually pretty different than it was even 10, 15, 20 years ago. And I think now we’re in a place where it’s really clear that the best antioxidant sources are whole, natural foods. And that a person is much better off eating garlic regularly than searching for the most optimized garlic supplement or the most potent, single constituent derived from garlic that’s been shown to have antioxidant activity, right? That’s more trouble than it’s actually worth. It’s definitely more expense than is actually required to get the benefits you’re aiming for. If you want to get the benefits of garlic, get some garlic. It’s cheap. It’s wildly abundant. You’re never going to run out. You can cultivate your own really easily. I think these are really significant benefits that strongly override any of these other urges to go and maximize antioxidant potency. It’s not required. Our bodies respond better to a broad variety of different antioxidants taken in the context of a full meal. Much better to that than we respond to a single, isolated antioxidant or even a product derived from a natural substance that’s been bent or tilted in order to maximize one particular compound. So, that’s my opinion there.

A Potent, Ubiquitous Polycrest Herb Worked with in Many Ways

Ryn (39:40):
And that of course is what humans have had access to throughout the majority of our history and indeed our prehistory. So, garlic is a most ancient herb. It was a part of Asian, and European, and African medicinal traditions since long before humans even had writing. And by that I mean that we can identify a sort of geographical origin for this plant in the archeological record. But the plant had been spread by humans thousands and thousands of years ago before the development of writing. So 10,000, 15,000 years ago. And it’s also mentioned in all of the oldest medical writing we’ve got. So ancient hieroglyphic, papyri, cuneiform tablets about medicine mentioned garlic because it had reached those areas, and become part of the medicine of the people, and they understood how critically powerful and important it was. And that’s still true today. Garlic is a critical component of herbal medicine practices now in most of the world, certainly including North and South America, all across the entire continent of Africa over to Australia. It’s everywhere, right, because it’s potent, because it’s inexpensive, because it’s easily cultivated. These are really, really valuable things when it comes to a particular herbal remedy. So because it’s so widespread and has such a strong place in herbal medicine tradition, this is also one of the herbs that’s been most extensively studied by scientists.

Ryn (41:17):
And those studies kind of began with investigations into immune function and cholesterol levels. And really that’s why those aspects of it are still so dominant in the commercial presentation of garlic out there. But garlic is more than that, right? Garlic is more than boost your immune function amp up white blood cells, bring down your LDL, or whatever else. Garlic is a very hot, very dry, and significantly tonifying herb. And so it’s a great exemplar of herbal energetics. That pungent flavor, those sulfurous notes you get when you just bite into some garlic, that speaks directly to the kind of actions it has in the body to stimulate, to activate, to get your juices flowing. You feel that happen in your mouth when you chew garlic, right? But it wakes up your stomach, and your liver, and your pancreas, and gets those juices flowing as well. It’s sometimes categorized as a bitter for those reasons. And there are preparations of garlic where you can taste bitterness a little more clearly. But I think this is really just an effect of the far-end pungent herbs as they tend to have that similar kind of impact on your digestive organs. So, one thing to say. I won’t go too far into the extensive elements of garlic here because we could teach for hours and days about it without exhausting its capacities. We have a full profile of garlic in our Materia Medica course. It features prominently in our material on Cardiovascular Health, Respiratory Health, Immune Health, First Aid. And I’ve got links to podcast episodes we’ve made. These were in our series about Accessible Herbalism, right? So, you can just check those out.

Ryn (43:00):
But garlic got mentioned about high blood pressure, cholesterol, respiratory ailments, edema, wound care. It’s really a polycrest herb. It can do a lot of different things. There’s lots of different ways you can work with it. Everything from tea, yes, garlic tea. My garlic tea is three to five cloves of garlic, chopped and sliced. One tablespoon of sage or oregano. One tablespoon of fennel seeds. And one teaspoon of honey. And that goes into a quart container, all that. That’s my garlic tea. That’s the first thing I make if I feel like I’ve got a respiratory problem coming on. And it’s great, strong stuff. I like that a lot. But you can tincture garlic. You can infuse it in oil. You can make salves. You can do soaks. You can do compresses. You can cook it in food. It’s a very flexible plant. So, there are lots of different ways to work with it. And not all of them have to be super intense, right? Like I was saying earlier, cooked garlic isn’t worthless. If you want to get a milder preparation of garlic, but you don’t want to pay a lot for the deodorized supplement, or the black garlic product, or whatever. Then you can simply take garlic cloves, peel the paper off, put ’em in a jar, and submerge them in either honey, or vinegar, or a mixture of both if you want. Let it sit for a few days to a week. And in either case it will mellow out, it will soften, it will be less intense. You might be able to just bite right into it. Or you could crush the garlic in there and make it into a spread, or a marinade, or something like that and take it that way. Spread it on toast, whatever you like, you know? So, again, lots of different ways to work with garlic, very fun stuff.

Ryn (44:35):
But what I’m trying to emphasize today though is just that it has these powerful energetic qualities to it. And what has happened in modern, commercialized herbal products is that garlic’s fame as an herb that can reduce cholesterol levels and blood pressure is so great and so part of conventional wisdom or folk wisdom that it often drives people into choices that are kind of nonsensical if we have any understanding of herbal energetics, right? So, a person with a damp, cold, lax constitution who’s got high blood pressure, probably as a result of too much extra fluid in the system and poor circulation and movement of that fluid. They’re going to respond really well to garlic. And it’s going to eliminate the extra fluid and reduce the pressure that way. And it’s going to increase that movement and circulation. And that’s going to have some benefits for both their pressure and their cholesterol readings, right? And then there’s the direct chemical-level antioxidant impacts that it carries all through your whole blood system. So, that’s great. But on the other hand, a person with a hot, dry, tense constitution who takes garlic to lower their blood pressure, well they’re very likely to experience some kind of adverse effect or another. Because this herb is hot, and it’s dry, and it’s tonifying. So, that individual would be much better off choosing linden or hibiscus to help them with their blood pressure, their cholesterol problem. But unless people know something about herbal energetics and about how to match the right herb to the right person, then they’re going to be pushed in that direction. Oh yeah, you are looking for something for cholesterol? Try garlic. You’re looking for something for high blood pressure? Try garlic. It’s just trotted out as the answer to those problems when even a simple assessment of do you run real hot? Do you have a lot of dryness? That would make it very obvious that we should steer away from an herb that goes so far in that direction and so fast.

Ryn (46:38):
All right, so that kind of is directly in line with the whole purpose of this series, which is to try to make us look at these commercialized herbs a little bit differently than the way they show up in their commercial presentations. And to remember there are traditional presentations and applications. And to draw on the knowledge of things like energetics that can help us to understand the right places and the right people for whom to recommend these. Yeah. All right. So, those are my thoughts on these three. If you have thoughts of your own, I would love to hear them. You can reach out and email info@commonwealthherbs.com, or you can join in to our community. When you take any of our courses – including the free ones, and there’s several of those – then you gain access to our student community. And you can share your own experiences, your favorite recipes, your successes and your failures – and we can help you to correct those – when it comes to herbalism. And that is just one of the many things you get when you study with us, along with lifetime access to your course material and any updates that we get later on. Direct access to faculty in the form of discussion threads integrated into every lesson. Twice weekly live Q&A sessions, and all the other good stuff you hear us talk about every time we have an episode of the podcast. So, as always, I hope they’ll check it out. You can find everything we do at online.commonwealthherbs.com. And that’s it for this week. We’ll be back soon with some more Holistic Herbalism podcast. Until then, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea. And if you want to, take a few supplements, but do it thoughtfully. See you later.

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