Aloe vera is well known as an ingredient of some of the more expensive cosmetic products, but not so many people know of its medicinal properties. This website will look at the many uses of aloe vera, which 
has been called the ‘wonder’ plant’ and the ‘miracle plant’. We will look at how aloe is used to combat various serious illnesses; its use in what is probably the best weight loss/weight management programme available; how it can benefit animals; and, of course, why it is used so successfully in cosmetics.
Aloe Vera For Health
I am not a doctor. However, I am a patient who has personally benefited from drinking aloe vera gel and I can speak from personal experience of the benefits of aloe vera. Aloe will help your body in two main ways:
- Its anti-inflammatory action treats various types of arthritis, also asthma, digestive disorders; and skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis..
- Aloe will boost your immune system. The importance of this cannot be stressed enough: your body will cure itself of many serious illnesses, especially if you help by boosting your immune system. A good example: the NHS announced in April 2011 that from now on its primary treatment for pancreatic cancer is to boost patients’ immune systems, and this treatment would be extended to patients with other cancers. Presumably the NHS would not have embarked on such a treatment without first testing to see if it produced worthwhile results. The NHS did not go into details as to how it would boost patients’ immune systems, but aloe vera’s ability to do this is well known and there is evidence that aloe has successfully treated various illnesses:
– Psoriasis. A skin disorder that affects many people. Patches of the skin are red or pink in colour with silver coloured scaling. Aloe vera successfully cured 83% of patients with the most common type, plaque psoriasis in a double-blind, placebo-controlled medical trial. Read more about successfully treating psoriasis on an inner page.
– Irritable Bowel Syndrome(IBS). Although IBS is not a life threatening illness, its effects can lead to a big change in sufferer’s lifestyles and can in extreme cases lead to depression. The main cause of IBS is thought to be a deficiency in patients’ immune systems. Read more about IBS and how it can be treated on an inside page.
Read what Dr Peter Atherton says about treating his patients with aloe vera. Dr Atherton was a GP in the UK who was so impressed with the medicinal quailties of aloe vera he left his practice to research its properties at Oxford University. There follows an extract from ‘Myth or Magic? by Dr Atherton; you can read the full article in the articles section.
“Although there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that Aloe Vera helps inflammatory conditions of the gastro intestinal tract such as gastritis, diverticulitis and colitis there is no firm evidence to support this. One paper has looked at Aloe Vera in the treatment of peptic ulcers with good results(12) and one paper by Dr. Jeffrey Bland(13) of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in California studied the results of Aloe Vera on the gastro intestinal tract of normal people. He found that Aloe Vera had several measurable effects. There was a faster movement of food through the bowel with better protein digestion and absorption, an increase in water in the stool made it bulkier, and a normalisation of stool bacteria, where there had previously been high levels of yeasts in some of the subjects.
As a result of these findings I decided to look at the effect of Aloe on the Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). This is an extremely common condition affecting probably more than five million people in the U.K. It is the commonest condition seen by the Gastro-enterologists in hospital clinics; yet most people do not even consult their doctor. The IBS is complex in its make up, and it is acknowledged that there is usually both a physical and a psychological component, resulting from stress. It is called a functional bowel disorder because if the bowel is examined it appears to be perfectly normal in every respect. There is no known cause and no uniformly effective conventional medical treatment. However, it can be extremely debilitating to the sufferers who complain of abdominal pain and bloating or intermittent diarrhoea, sometimes alternating with constipation. Occasionally there is passage of mucous. The physical disorder is thought to be a dysmotility or alteration in the normal smooth peristaltic movement of the bowel and so it seemed a good subject for Aloe Vera. As I hoped, regular consumption of Aloe Vera gel worked well in the majority of patients who tried it. One female patient was so pleased with her newly controlled bowel that she said “I can go shopping now with confidence – it’s great”. It is now my first line treatment for IBS.”
Other medicinal benefits from taking aloe vera:
- Aloe vera is a natural source of folic acid which is important to pregnant women and those who are planning a pregnancy.
- Vegans and vegetarians need this to supplement a diet that is lacking meat and dairy products.
- Antioxidants. The World Health Organisation has identified 60 diseases associated with free radical damage. Aloe vera gel is packed with antioxidants which are known to combat free radicals. I have experienced several attacks of acute pancreatitis (a life-threatening illness). After being told by doctors in two hospitals that there was no treatment for pancreatitis I did some research on the Internet and found that the Manchester royal Infirmary had successfully treated patients with acute pancreatitis for more than 20 years by giving them a course of vitamins and antioxidants. You can read about my experience on the ‘About Me’ page.
- Dentistry. Read the article about how dentists use aloe vera to treat periodontal and other oral conditions.
- Leg Ulcers. We include another medical paper; this one about treating severe leg ulcers.
If aloe vera can be used to boost the body’s immune system and, by so doing, it can treat many severe illnesses; it follows that if you boost your immune system while you are well, you are less likely to suffer from any of the illnesses in the first place. In other words, aloe vera is preventative medicine. Indeed, many people who drink aloe vera gel report a feel-good factor and I personally can vouch for that.
Aloe Vera In Weight Management.
A good diet is one that
- Provides all the nourishment the body needs;
- Enables you to lose weight without feeling hungry; and
- Maintains your new, lower, weight without yo-yoing up and down.
The Clean 9 Diet will cleanse your system (detox), and the Nutri-Lean Diet will burn off the fat cells and teach your body how to manage your weight. Read about the details on the inside pages.
Aloe Vera In Cosmetics
The best way to show how aloe vera will benefit your skin is to quote Dr Atherton again. Here he talks about an American physican who tested aloe vera on one of his hands.
Many patients, after treatment with aloe for various skin problems, commented that their skin quality had improved and felt softer and smoother This is not surprising as Aloe Vera has been added to many cosmetic products for many years because of its known rejuvenating action.
It achieves this in several different ways. Firstly the polysaccharides act as moisturisers, hydrating the skin. Secondly, aloe is absorbed into the skin and stimulates the fibroblasts to replicate themselves faster(10,11) and it is these cells that produce the collagen and elastin fibres, so the skin becomes more elastic and less wrinkled. Aloe also makes the surface of the skin smoother because of its cohesive effect on the superficial flaking epidermal cells by sticking them together. It also possesses the ability to interfere with the enzyme that produces melanin deposits in the skin, preventing the formation of ‘liver spots’ which tend to form in ageing skin. If Aloe Vera is applied regularly and for long enough it will often cause established spots to disappear.
The best demonstration of this effect that I have ever seen, was shown by Dr. Ivan Danhof, an American physician who has worked with topical aloe products in the cosmetic industry for 30 years. When testing new creams and lotions, being right handed, he always applied the material with the fingers of his right hand to the back of his left hand in order to test its texture, smell and penetrability. He now declares that he has one old hand and one young hand and indeed the comparison when he puts his hands together to show the backs, side by side, is quite remarkable.
One hand is the typical hand of a seventy year old with thinning, wrinkled skin covered in a variety of blemishes, whilst the other, his left hand, is clear and smooth and looks 30 years younger.
