Aloe vera the medicinal house plant

While this plant is fairly common and well-known for its role in sunburn recovery, Aloe Vera is not content taking care of only one or two issues. This plant is a wonderful healing substance with plenty of uses

(Article republished from GreenMedInfo.com)

Aloe Vera, the Medicinal House Plant

I must have been day dreaming last week when I poured hot water on my hand instead of into the tea pot. Needless to say, this really hurt. I immediately plunged the hand into a pitcher of ice water for relief, and it did feel a lot better, but the pain returned every time I removed the hand from the ice water. Hot water burns are no fun.

Finally I settled down, and remembered we had some Aloe Vera plants growing in the back yard for the expressed purpose of treating skin burns and cuts. I walked out to the back yard to inspect Aloe Vera planter which is now overgrown. I cut off a nice aloe leaf with my pocket knife and split the leaf to expose the inner gel, which was then applied to my hand. Amazingly, I experienced immediate pain relief, and the burn healed fairly quickly.

Ignored in the Back Yard for Years

I then realized that all these years, I had been ignoring the medicinal benefits of Aloe growing in my own back yard. The Aloe plant had far more medicinal benefits than I had considered. I thought: “If Aloe could relieve pain and speed healing of skin burns, what are the medical benefits of ingesting Aloe as an oral preparation?”

Trying Aloe as a Drink

So I decided to try drinking the Aloe. I sliced off a few more Aloe leaves, and then ran them through our masticating juicer. The central gel is a transparent slimy substance. Small amounts of the green rind also came out into the mix. I then placed about half a cup of the gel into my blender along with some frozen cherries, protein powder and hemp oil, and made a protein shake smoothie. The concoction had a definite anti-inflammatory effect. Lingering body aches and pains were relieved. There was also a beneficial effect on digestion.

Other Medicinal Benefits

Depending on the exact component of aloe, whether the green skin, or inner gel, other medicinal benefits have been reported. Aloe has an anti-inflammatory effect, anti-microbial effect, anti-cancer effect, anti-glycemic effect, and heals skin, and bone rapidly. (1-30)

Topical Aloe for Skin Conditions

Dr. Zari found topical Aloe useful in eczema. (5) Dr. Goudarzi found Aloe effective against Multidrug-Resistant Pseudomonas in burn wound Infections. (6) Dr López found the leaf skin extract had anti-mycoplsma activity. (7)

Anti-Cancer Activity of Aloe

In a study involving 240 patients with metastatic cancer, those treated with aloe fared better with improved survival. (8) The authors state:

The percentage of both objective tumor regressions and disease control was significantly higher in patients concomitantly treated with Aloe than with chemotherapy alone, as well as the percent of 3-year survival patients.(8)

There is a case report of ocular surface cancer cured with topical aloe drops. (31) There are many other plants which have anti-cancer activity.(9)

Aloe has been studied and found effective against breast cancer cell lines (10), neuroectodermal tumors (11), glioma cells (13) and lung cancer cells (15) by inducing apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. Emodin, an ingredient in aloe, induces apoptosis in human squamous cell cancer. (17)

Anti-cancer mechanisms were studied. Aloe induces apoptosis via mitochondrial caspace pathways. (33-35)

Inflammatory Bowel Disease

In a randomized trial of 44 outpatients with ulcerative colitis, those treated with Aloe Vers 100 ml twice daily for four weeks had improvement while the placebo treated patients did not.(23) The authors state:

Oral aloe vera taken for 4 weeks produced a clinical response more often than placebo; it also reduced the histological disease activity and appeared to be safe.

Curcumin, another natural plant botanical was found effective for maintaining remission in quisacent Ulcerative Colitis (24)

Bone Healing – Improving Bone Density

Researchers found that acemannen in aloe significantly increased markers of bone growth, bone density and mineralization, thus serving as natural biomaterial for bone regeneration. (32)

Anti-Diabetes

Doctors found aloe effective as an anti-hyperglycemic and anti-hypercholesterolemic agent for hyperlipidemic type 2 diabetic patients. (40)

Wound Healing

Aloe accelerates cutaneous (skin) wound healing. (41-43)

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