Savory Science?

They come from all over the world to the sunny shores of Newport Beach to talk about garlic.

Scientists, researchers, doctors and nutritionists--all are enlisted knowingly or not in a public relations effort to trumpet the possible nutritional benefits of the odoriferous bulb.

The three-day conference, which continues through today, is being supported by an interested party--Wakunaga of America Co., the Mission Viejo subsidiary of the Japanese company which touts its odorless, aged-garlic extract as a nutritional supplement with health benefits. But while garlic has gained a hold on the public’s imagination as a popular herbal remedy, there remains much debate about whether garlic holds any health benefit at all.

“Half the people in the United States take some type of nutritional supplement, and there is a lot of indiscriminate use,” said Dr. Richard Rivlin, professor of medicine and head of the division of nutrition at Cornell Medical College in New York. “We need to support, redirect or debunk that use.”

That debate hasn’t stalled consumers, though. Americans spent $200 million on medicinal garlic preparations in 1997, up 33% from 1995, according to Nutrition Business Journal. Similar interest in other home remedies, herbal and nontraditional therapies have played out elsewhere, as studies that tout the benefits--or drawbacks--of everything from caffeine to fish oils to megadose vitamins spur a buying frenzy by Americans looking for health in a bottle.

Recent studies of garlic powder and garlic oil, including one at the University of Bonn, have found no effect on blood cholesterol. But the industry is driven largely by the notion that garlic supplements can thin blood, improve cardiovascular health, kill germs and perhaps fight cancer.

Some other research suggests that garlic--in the form of garlic extract--can lower moderately elevated blood cholesterol levels. The debate, though muted at the conference, exploded into a mini-controversy in the letters in this week’s edition of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Assn.

So what’s a company to do? Keep spreading its gospel, apparently. Winning over buyers is particularly important when the remedy has not survived the kind of rigorous approvals required by the Federal Drug Administration. Garlic extract, after all, is sold over the counter and needs no doctor’s prescription.

Many of the nearly 160 scientists at the meeting, which received a small grant from the National Cancer Institute, bristle at the suggestion that theirs is bought research. This is serious science, they argue, and no sane industry would pay for false conclusions that could haunt it.

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“Industry support does not mean the science is tainted,” said John Milner, who heads the department of nutrition at Pennsylvania State University and who organized the conference. “I am a scientist, and I am going to call it as I see it.”

In fact, several at the conference said that, as the competition for limited government funds increases, industry must necessarily assume a larger support role.

Others said that the conference will stimulate researchers, who admittedly are working on science that is somewhat out of the mainstream and not well covered in leading journals.

The conference allows those scientists to learn firsthand about other research and compare notes. The cross-pollination of ideas is important, they said, in promoting more research. It is exactly what is done in any scientific field, they said.

Carmia Borek, professor of community health and medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts, was among the 30 or more scientists who had their expenses paid by conference organizers to attend the meeting. She said she needs to know what others are doing without waiting for it to be published.

Wakunaga officials too are sensitive to charges that the conference is designed to showcase captive science or that the event is merely a marketing ploy. The company is well-known for its largess in funding outside research, spending about $5 million in the past 10 years, said Harunobu Amagase, director of research and development for the company.

They remain adamant that they do not control the research or the conference, turning funds over to the universities and sponsors regardless of the outcome of their work. But they agree that the conference is another way to spur more research.

“This is how it is done,” said William Stirling, director of marketing. “This is how you create awareness and interest in the product.”