About Aloe vera, a medicinal herb that has been used for several thousand years in traditional Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman medicine. In biblical times, the Egyptians called it the 'plant of immortality' and the Chinese the 'elixir of youth'.
Pros
Aloe vera juice has been evaluated for its antioxidant potential and this study demonstrated a significant presence of antioxidants in aloe extracts. At 3 years of plant life, the plant extract has the strongest free radical scavenging activity of 72.19%, which is significantly higher than BHT with 70.52% and alpha-tocopherol with 65.65% (1).
Aloe vera juice also has antibacterial properties against Gram-positive bacteria (2).
Aloe barbadensis (studies on laboratory animals) can normalise oxidative stress and can be used as an effective nephroprotective agent against drug-induced nephrotoxicity (3).
The polysaccharide component of aloe gel from selected species has a dehydrating effect on the skin after multiple applications. Both Aloe vera and Aloe ferox gel have shown good potential to reduce erythema on the skin, similar to that of hydrocortisone gel (4).
Oral supplementation with high molecular weight Aloe Vera could be useful in relieving fibrosis and inflammation in patients with liver fibrosis (5).
Effective in the treatment of wounds (6).
Pretreatment with Aloe polysaccharides may attenuate cerebral ischaemia by inhibiting the systemic inflammatory response, leucocyte aggregation and lipid peroxidation in the brain (7).
Cons
As with many other popular drugs, the efficacy of Aloe vera remains controversial and its safety as a dietary supplement uncertain. A 13-week toxicity study was conducted on laboratory animals and concluded that long-term exposure of rats to Aloe vera whole leaf extract induced damage to the intestinal tract (8).
To the knowledge of these physicians, this is the first case of toxic hepatitis that can be attributed to an Aloe vera preparation. A 57-year-old patient with no pre-existing liver disease started taking tablets containing 500 mg of an Aloe barbadensis extract about 4 weeks before admission (9).
