Taking a daily garlic supplement for a year doesn’t seem to shrink the overall gunk in the heart arteries of people with type 2 diabetes—but it might specifically reduce the soft, dangerous kind of gunk that’s more likely to cause heart attacks.

For people with type 2 diabetes, taking a specific type of garlic supplement every day for a year may help shrink dangerous fatty buildups in the heart arteries, while those not taking it saw those buildups get worse.

Taking a daily garlic supplement for a year doesn’t make the hard, calcified buildups in the arteries of people with type 2 diabetes get bigger — so it’s not causing their blood vessels to stiffen as a side effect.

People with type 2 diabetes who aren’t taking aged garlic extract tend to develop more dangerous plaque in their heart arteries over a year, and this plaque buildup goes up by 57%—which means their risk of a heart attack is likely rising naturally over time.

Taking aged garlic extract might slow down the hardening of your heart arteries and help lower your blood pressure by making dangerous fatty buildups in your arteries more stable and less likely to cause a heart attack.

If you're already taking a statin pill for your heart, adding aged garlic extract might help slow down the buildup of calcium in your heart arteries—kind of like a helpful sidekick for your heart health.