Aloe Vera plant is at the very top of the list of over 30,000 registered nutritious and medicinal plants. It contains almost all of the natural ingredients needed for maintaining all of the biochemical processes and vital functions of our bodies:

* strengthens immune system
* blocks free radicals
* rejuvenates
* alleviates pain
* reduces swelling
* lowers body temperature
* prevents formation of blood cloths
* reduces allergies
* increases energy
* stimulates growth of healthy cells
* inhibits growth of tumor cells
* and more...

Aloe and Cancer

Dr. Lawrence G. Plaskett, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry among many other academic distinctions, states "The action of substances in Aloe vera does activate and intensify the immune response, and this constitutes one of the fundamental scientifically established actions of Aloe upon the body."

It is in the boosting of the immune system's response to antigens (foreign elements in the body) that Aloe vera has shown the most promise in treating cancer. Although no one is yet proposing that Aloe vera is a cure for cancer, it is clear from research conducted throughout the world over the past thirty years that Aloe vera and, in particular, certain specific substances in the plant - have very dramatic and impressive anti-cancer effects. Aloe vera has been demonstrated to enhance the immune system's response to cancer, promote the growth of new and healthy cells, and reduce the overall viral load within the body thereby revitalizing the body in its fight against the cancer.
www.aloedoctor.net

Hi lenochka,

I don't know where you have been hiding for the past 30 years but Aloe Vera juice has been used by practitioners for colitis, crohns etc for at least this long. Tell me did this Dr Lawrence G Plaskett fail Physics and Chemistry, because if he didn't then he must know that Homeopathy is only water, or was he bought?

Thames Valley University is one of those shameful institutions that offer Bachelor of Science degrees in homeopathy. They don’t stop there though. They’ll teach you several other forms of make-believe medicine. Among these is “nutritional medicine”. This is taught at the Plaskett Nutritional Medicine College which is now part of Thames Valley University.

Everyone is for good nutrition of course, but ‘nutritional medicine’, or ‘nutritional therapy’ pretends to be able to cure all sorts of diseases by changes in diet or by buying expensive nutritional supplement pills. It has no perceptible relationship to the very important subjects of ‘nutrition’ or ‘dietetics’. Nutritional therapy is very firmly part of alternative medicine, in other words it is largely quackery. If you don’t believe that, read on.

The subject of nutritional therapy was in the news recently because of Matthias Rath. He is the person who is reponsible for the death of many Africans because of his advocacy of vitamin pills for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. He didn’t just (mis)treat people, but also played a role in persuading the recently departed Thabo Mbeki, and his health minister (”Mrs Beetroot”) to abandon effective therapies for AIDS sufferers.

I am a Naturopath with a Bachelor of Science Degree that means something to me, I did not go into Naturopathy because of pseudo science, I went there because I knew you could scientifically test nutrition, herbal medicine, counselling and remedial massage, we don't need the crap, let us go with the truth and see how far it can take us.

Cheers

Hi Lenochka,

I have been looking for some high quality research papers to see if they support what you are saying.


Enhancement of allo-responsiveness of human lymphocytes by acemannan (Carrisyn).

Womble D, Helderman JH.

Renal Immunology Laboratory, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.

Healing powers have been imputed as being a feature of the gel from the aloe vera plant for centuries. The recent isolation of the active ingredient, acemannan, has made testing of this drug important. Since the drug appears to enhance monocyte function in other experiments, these studies were designed to test the capacity of acemannan to enhance immune response to alloantigen and to test whether the potential enhancement is a monocyte driven phenomenon. Acemannan did not enhance lymphocyte response to syngeneic antigens in the mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) but importantly increased alloantigenic response in a dose-response fashion (2.6 x 10(-7) - 2.6 x 10(-9)M). This effect of acemannan was shown to be a specific response and to concur with concentrations of in vitro acemannan achievable in vivo. A separate series of mixing experiments demonstrated that acemannan incubation with monocytes permitted monocyte driven signals to enhance T-cell response to lectin. It is concluded that acemannan, the active ingredient of the aloe vera plant, is an important immunoenhancer in that it increases lymphocyte response to alloantigen. It is suggested that the mechanism involves enhancement of monocyte release of IL-I under the aegis of alloantigen. This mechanism may explain in part the recently observed capacity of acemannan to abrogate viral infections in animal and man.

Merely isolating an active ingredient proves nothing more than it should be looked at and some experiments done, you need big trials (N= lots of people) carried out in a quality scientific study, blinded, placebo controlled with random selection of participants, and even then it must be duplicated many times before you can be sure that you have removed all possible bias.

Here is another one.

TS | REGISTER | CUSTOMER SUPPORT | NIH PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY
lwwlogo banner
Home Search Current Issue Archive Publish Ahead of Print
April 2007, 16:2 > Effect of Aloe vera leaf pulp extract...

< Previous | Next >
ARTICLE LINKS:
Fulltext | PDF (468 K) | Request Permission
European Journal of Cancer Prevention:Volume 16(2)April 2007pp 151-157
Effect of Aloe vera leaf pulp extract on Ehrlich ascites tumours in mice
[Research papers: Other Cancers]

Akev, Nuriyea; Turkay, Gulhanb; Can, Aysea; Gurel, Aydncı; Yildiz, Fundac; Yardibi, Hasretb; Ekiz, Elif Erguld; Uzun, Hafizee

aDepartment of Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Istanbul University, Beyazit

Departments of bBiochemistry

cPathology

dPhysiology, Veterinary Faculty, Istanbul University, Avcilar

eDepartment of Biochemistry, Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa, Istanbul, Turkey

Correspondence to Mrs Nuriye Akev, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Istanbul University, 34116 Beyazit, Istanbul, Turkey

Tel: +90 212 440 02 74; fax: +90 212 440 02 52; e-mail: nakev@istanbul.edu.tr

Sponsorship: This work was supported by Istanbul University Research Fund (Project Number: 37/11092002).

Received 30 September 2005 Accepted 11 January 2006
Abstract

Among the various known therapeutic effects of Aloe vera (L.) Burm. fil., a few recent studies have shown that preparations of the plant leaves can prevent or regress the growth of certain tumours. In this study, undertaken with A. vera leaf pulp extract against Ehrlich ascites tumours in mice, the animals were separated into five groups: I - healthy control, II - tumour control, III - experiment 1 (extract given before tumour inoculation), IV - experiment 2 (extract given with tumour inoculation) and V - experiment 3 (extract given after tumour inoculation). Ehrlich ascites tumours (0.33 ml) were injected subcutaneously into groups II-V. Aloe extract was injected at 55 mg protein/kg, twice a week for 21 days. Tumour size, thymus and spleen weights were measured, as well as leucocyte count, tumour necrosis factor-α and sialic acid as tumour markers. The best inhibitory effect on tumour growth was obtained with the extract given prophylactically before tumour implantation (experiment 1), although Aloe extract also regressed tumour sizes when given simultaneously with (experiment 2), or therapeutically after (experiment 3), tumour implantation. Accordingly, serum sialic acid and tumour necrosis factor-α levels, chosen as tumour markers, which were raised in the tumour control group, were significantly decreased by the prophylactic administration of the extract. The increase in leucocyte count seen in experiment 1 and 2 groups, along with lymphoid hyperplasia observed in spleen and thymus necroscopy, lead us to think that the tumour preventive effect of Aloe could be due to its immunomodulatory activity. According to our results, A. vera could be proposed as a prophylactic for cancer prevention.

And another one.


NCBI
PubMed A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
and the National Institutes of Health
My NCBI My NCBI help
[Sign In] [Register]

* All Databases
* PubMed
* Nucleotide
* Protein
* Genome
* Structure
* OMIM
* PMC
* Journals
* Books

SearchDatabase nameforSearch term Go Clear

* Advanced Search

* Limits
* Preview/Index
* History
* Clipboard
* Details

Display Show
All: 1 Review: 1
Click to change filter selection through MyNCBI.

1: Br J Gen Pract. 1999 Oct;49(447):823-8.Click here to read Click here to read Links
Aloe vera: a systematic review of its clinical effectiveness.
Vogler BK, Ernst E.

Department of Complementary Medicine, School of Postgraduate Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Exeter.

BACKGROUND: The use of aloe vera is being promoted for a large variety of conditions. Often general practitioners seem to know less than their patients about its alleged benefits. AIM: To define the clinical effectiveness of aloe vera, a popular herbal remedy in the United Kingdom. METHOD: Four independent literature searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Biosis, and the Cochrane Library. Only controlled clinical trials (on any indication) were included. There were no restrictions on the language of publication. All trials were read by both authors and data were extracted in a standardized, pre-defined manner. RESULTS: Ten studies were located. They suggest that oral administration of aloe vera might be a useful adjunct for lowering blood glucose in diabetic patients as well as for reducing blood lipid levels in patients with hyperlipidaemia. Topical application of aloe vera is not an effective preventative for radiation-induced injuries. It might be effective for genital herpes and psoriasis. Whether it promotes wound healing is unclear. There are major caveats associated with all of these statements. CONCLUSION: Even though there are some promising results, clinical effectiveness of oral or topical aloe vera is not sufficiently defined at present.

PMID: 10885091 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]



As you can clearly see from this there is still a lot of work to be done before you could safely say Aloe Vera could cure/prevent anything.

Cheers