Aloe Vera - Botanical Medicines

Aloe Vera

There are at least 120 known species of aloe, many of which have been used as botanical medicines. The sap and rind portions of the aloe vera leaf contain healing components such as analgesics, anti-inflammatory compounds, minerals, and beneficial fatty acids. According to Michael Murray and Joseph Pizzorno in the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine , aloe vera contains anthraquinones, which reduce the growth rate of urinary calcium crystals that contribute to the formation of kidney stones. Once kidney stones form, as reported by K. Riley in the 1981 edition of the Journal of John Bastyr College of Natural Medicine , aloe vera extracts can help reduce the size of stones and subsequently eliminate them.

Aloe vera is widely known as a skin moisturizer and healing agent, especially in treating cuts, burns, insect stings, bruises, acne, poison ivy, welts, ulcerated skin lesions, eczema, and sunburns. It has also been used, according to James Balch and Phyllis Balch in Prescription for Nutritional Healing , to treat stomach disorders, ulcers, colitis, and many colon-related disorders. They suggest that aloe vera juice may be used to treat food allergies, varicose veins, skin cancer, and arthritis as well.

Aloe vera may help stop the spread of some viruses. Researchers at the University of Maryland in Baltimore tested the antiviral activity of a number of plant extracts, including aloe vera emodin. The results, according to R. Sydiskis in the December 1991 issue of Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy , showed that aloe emodin inactivated herpes simplex virus type 1 and 2, varicella-zoster virus, pseudorabies virus, and the influenza virus.