If vampires started a global rampage, would garlic keep them away?

After Covid changed our lives forever, is an invasion of bloodsucking freaks really that far fetched? And will garlic be our saviour? Two SA researchers are on the case.

We all know the theory that Covid-19 came from bats. And, of course, that vampires can turn themselves into bats.

So what if the next global catastrophe was a “vampiregeddon”?

That’s the question two South Australian researchers have turned their minds to in a frivolous paper for the Christmas edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, which is following the British Medical Journal’s tradition of a lighthearted holiday read.

UniSA’s Dr Evangeline Mantzioris and Adelaide University’s Professor Philip Weinstein pose the argument that, weakened by the coronavirus pandemic, economic downturn and climate crisis, humanity is at “heightened risk of further apocalyptic events such as a vampiregeddon”.

So to assess our preparedness for an invasion of bloodsucking freaks, they reviewed the “evidence” on the use of garlic as a vampire deterrent.

Dr Mantzioris said the paper stemmed from a conversation with a fellow scientist about the garlic’s capacity to lower blood pressure.

They realised this could be part of the reason garlic was traditionally said to ward off vampires.

European folklore has it that hanging garlic around your neck or in doorways and windows keeps them at bay, but Dr Mantzioris said eating it could be valuable too, as lower blood pressure would “reduce the ability of vampires to feed from the victims”.

“Speed in feeding is of the essence, in that the probability of discovery and being staked increases with feeding time,” she said.

“Therefore, even a small reduction in blood pressure would increase risk.”

Garlic can improve blood pressure, whatever it does to bats. iStock

Dr Mantzioris said she tried garlic supplements on her husband and within a week, his blood pressure dropped. “Where people are borderline hypertensive it’s probably useful,” she said.

Garlic has other health benefits too, being pretty much anti-everything – “anticarcinogenic, antioxidant, anti-glycaemic, anti-atherosclerotic and antimicrobial” as well as antihypertensive.

Of course, eating garlic also causes garlic breath, but the smell also comes out in sebum – the oily, waxy substance produced by sebaceous glands in the skin and hair – like an all-over vampire repellent.

Dr Mantzioris said she particularly enjoyed reading research into where the smell comes out, “mainly around the neck area … where vampires would bite to draw the blood”.

“So the fact that you’re more likely to spread it out in that neck region was actually quite funny and did make me laugh,” she said.

Her reading also uncovered a medical problem that, left untreated, would make someone look and behave like a vampire.

Actor Parker Posey as vampire villain Anica Talos in 2004 film Blade: Trinity.

In iron deficiency condition porphyria, there is a lack of haemoglobin (anaemia) and an accumulation of compounds in the skin that are light-sensitive.

“Exposing photosensitised skin to sunlight in affected individuals results in severe itching, scratching, and ultimately disfiguring – not surprisingly causing affected individuals to avoid sunlight and reverse their day-night cycle,” Dr Mantzioris said. “Coincidentally, the gums are also affected, and recede in a way that makes teeth look longer.”

Prof Weinstein said: “Vampires suck, and stopping them in their tracks with garlic is more cost-effective than trying to increase donations to Red Cross Blood Banks.”

But if we’re serious about dosing everyone with garlic, Australia would have to step up production seven-fold for one clove a day each, or 100-fold for the added repellent odour bonus.

Excerpts from the paper:

Mantzioris E, Weinstein P. Garlic as a vampire deterrent: fact or fiction?. Med J Aust 2021; 215 (11): 541-543. © Copyright 2021 The Medical Journal of Australia

– reproduced with permission.