Aloe vera gel
This ingredient can be found in: Pop A Purple | Pop A Green
Aloe vera is a succulent plant well-known for its skin healing properties, but is also useful for maintaining gastrointestinal health, normal blood sugar levels, and even has anticancer properties. It contains over 70 biologically-active compounds, some of which have demonstrated anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties, as well as beneficial effects on the immune system.
Aloe vera gel is effective in healing a variety of wounds, such as those caused by frostbite, electrical injury, and wounds common in diabetes. Aloe vera juice is commonly used for internal healing and soothing of chronic digestive symptoms. Inflammatory bowel disease is on such chronic difficult-to-treat condition for which effective treatments are lacking. In addition, many of the conventional therapies can cause serious side effects. Aloe vera has been shown to reduce the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis), and is safe and well-tolerated.
Aloe vera is also a traditional remedy for diabetes in the Middle East. Diabetes is an increasingly prevalent chronic disease that causes serious complications and increased risk of premature death. Aloe vera has recently been shown in clinical studies to reduce high blood glucose levels in people with diabetes and its consumption may help prevent diabetes in healthy people.
The anticancer effects of aloe vera are especially interesting. Aloe vera specifically targets the HER2/neu gene that plays a role in highly aggressive forms of breast cancer, non-small-cell lung cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and gastric cancer. By inhibiting this gene, aloe vera helps kill cancer cells, but is completely nontoxic to normal, healthy cells. In addition, a compound found in aloe vera leaves, aloe-emodin, has also been shown to target tumor cells in neuroblastoma, a highly malignant tumor in infants that causes 10% of all childhood cancers. Aloe-emodin selectively inhibited the growth of tumor cells and caused their death, while having no effect on normal healthy cells. The selectivity is important, because the toxic effect of many anti-cancer compounds is due to their nonselective damage of healthy tissues.
References
- Langmead L, Feakins RM, Goldthorpe S, et al. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of oral aloe vera gel for active ulcerative colitis. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2004 Apr 1;19(7):739-47. View Source
- Langmead L, Makins RJ, Rampton RS. Anti-inflammatory effects of aloe vera gel in human colorectal mucosa in vitro. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2004 Mar 1;19(5):521-7 View Source
- MacKay D, Miller AL. Nutritional support for wound healing. Altern Med Rev. 2003 Nov;8(4):359-77.View Source
- Pecere T, Gazzola MV, Mucignat C, et al. Aloe-emodin is a new type of anticancer agent with selective activity against neuroectodermal tumors. Cancer Res. 2000 Jun 1;60(11):2800-4. View Source
- Yeh GY, Eisenberg DM, Kaptchuk TJ, Phillips RS. Systematic review of herbs and dietary supplements for glycemic control in diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2003 Apr;26(4):1277-94. View Source
- Sagar S, Yance D, Wong, R. Natural health products that inhibit angiogenesis: a potential source for investigational new agents to treat cancer – Part 2. Curr Oncol. 2006 June; 13(3): 99–107 View Source




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