Garlic
raw or cooked. Vegetables & fruit.
- Verdict
- May lower riskSome studies point to lower risk, but it isn't confirmed.
- How sure
- Rung 2 · LimitedFew, small or conflicting human studies, or only indirect measures such as blood markers.
- How big
- 17% lower odds of stomach cancer at the highest intake, in pooled case-control studies.
The rung shows how sure the science is, not how big the effect is. How to read these ratings
Cancers affected
Stomach (case-control studies)
What the evidence shows
In a pooled analysis of 17 studies (6,097 people with stomach cancer, 13,017 without), people who ate the most garlic had 17% lower odds of stomach cancer; the link was stronger in Asian studies and could partly reflect other habits. The American Institute for Cancer Research says the evidence on garlic is too limited to draw conclusions, and higher-quality cohort studies found no drop in colorectal cancer.
What to do
Enjoy it in cooking as part of a vegetable-rich diet.
Sources
Spotted an error? Tell us and we’ll check it against the sources.
Related
Every food we rated, or follow one cancer step by step: breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer.