Monday, May 21, 2007 by: Mike Adams
I’m truly excited to be bringing you this information today about the miraculous healing abilities of aloe vera. First off, in case you don’t know, let me emphasize that I don’t sell aloe vera products of any kind, I haven’t been paid to write this article, and I don’t earn any commissions from the sale of any products mentioned here. I am, however, an enthusiastic supporter of natural medicine, and I personally grow and eat aloe vera plants in Tucson, Arizona.
In fact, my yard is an aloe farm, and each day before I make my superfood breakfast smoothie, I walk out to my yard, slice off an aloe vera leaf, thank the plant for granting me its healing medicine, then I fillet the leaf and drop the aloe vera gel into my blender. A few minutes later, I’m enjoying the most impressive medicinal herb that nature has ever created. (Click here to see the new PhotoTour showing step-by-step pictures of how to fillet aloe vera and remove the inner gel.)
When I say aloe vera is the most impressive medicinal herb invented by nature, I don’t make that statement lightly. Of all the herbs I’ve ever studied — and I’ve written thousands of articles on nutrition and disease prevention — aloe vera is the most impressive herb of them all. (Garlic would be a close second.) There is nothing on this planet that offers the amazing variety of healing benefits granted by aloe vera. In a single plant, aloe vera offers potent, natural medicine that:
• Halts the growth of cancer tumors.
• Lowers high cholesterol.
• Repairs “sludge blood” and reverses “sticky blood”.
• Boosts the oxygenation of your blood.
• Eases inflammation and soothes arthritis pain.
• Protects the body from oxidative stress.
• Prevents kidney stones and protects the body from oxalates in coffee and tea.
• Alkalizes the body, helping to balance overly acidic dietary habits.
• Cures ulcers, IBS, Crohn’s disease and other digestive disorders.
• Reduces high blood pressure natural, by treating the cause, not just the symptoms.
• Nourishes the body with minerals, vitamins, enzymes and glyconutrients.
• Accelerates healing from physical burns and radiation burns.
• Replaces dozens of first aid products, makes bandages and antibacterial sprays obsolete.
• Halts colon cancer, heals the intestines and lubricates the digestive tract.
• Ends constipation.
• Stabilizes blood sugar and reduces triglycerides in diabetics.
• Prevents and treats candida infections.
• Protects the kidneys from disease.
• Functions as nature’s own “sports drink” for electrolyte balance, making common sports drinks obsolete.
• Boosts cardiovascular performance and physical endurance.
• Speeds recovery from injury or physical exertion.
• Hydrates the skin, accelerates skin repair.
Truly, there is nothing else that compares to the medicinal potential of aloe vera. And yet most people only know about the topical applications of aloe vera gel. They think it’s only good for sunburns. In reality, aloe vera is useful for both external and internal use. In this article, I’ll discuss both.
Journey with me to the desert
To understand why aloe vera is so important, come with me to the deserts of Arizona. There, you’ll find an abundant diversity of plant life featuring impressive adaptations to living in a nearly water-free environment. Some of the trees, for example, have green bark and almost no leaves in order to reduce water loss. Small weeds have incredibly strong tap roots that thrust deep underground to find every last drop of moisture, and succulents have developed water storage techniques that capture water in an internal matrix of unique long-chain polysaccharides.
After a rain in the desert, you can actually watch the succulents swell to 130% their usual size as they take in water. During periods of drought, they slowly shrink back to normal as the excess water locked in their gel matrix is consumed.
It is these succulents we’re interested in here, and it’s only the inner gel that we’re focused on, because this inner gel has medicinal properties you’d be surprised to learn. For starters, there’s the fact that all succulents have self-repairing abilities. They don’t simply store water in a giant internal “water tank” that leaks out if torn or punctured: Their internal gel repairs any cut or tear by automatically shrinking the wound and creating a new water-tight seal. This gel matrix is comprised of hundreds of different phytochemicals that not only store water and repair injury; they also grant notable medicinal effects to humans who consume them.
Until now, there was only one good way to get aloe vera gel: Grow it yourself. I’ve done that for years, and when I’m making a smoothie, I often cut a large aloe vera leaf out of my yard, slice off the thick green skin of the leaf, and drop the large gel piece into a blender. You can see how this works in the aloe vera PhotoTour. The piece of aloe vera gel you see in the last picture is what I ate.
The reason I’m writing about aloe vera now is because a company I know here in Arizona called Good Cause Wellness (www.GoodCauseWellness.com) has launched a line of low-temperature dried aloe vera & berry products that you can use as ingredients in any smoothie. It’s the next best thing to growing your own fresh aloe vera leaves. It’s a high-grade, pesticide-free, highly concentrated aloe vera gel powder (just the gel, not the leaf) available in two mixtures: Aloe Vera + Raspberry Powder and Aloe Vera + Blueberry Powder. This makes aloe vera gel available to everyone, not just those who live in the desert.
You see, until now, I’ve been a strong proponent of the health benefits of aloe vera, but I had no advice for teaching others how to take the product. The typical aloe vera liquids available in retail are very weak, and some contain almost no aloe vera juice whatsoever. Many are mixed with food thickeners to make them look like a gel, but most have been heated, destroying a significant portion of their healing effects. This new aloe vera gel powder is the best form of aloe vera I’ve seen yet, and it’s in a convenient format that’s perfect for using in your own smoothies.
I’ll talk more about the products in a different article. Here, I’d like to focus on the substantial health benefits of aloe vera to let you see just why I’m so excited about the medicinal applications of this miracle plant.
Health benefits of aloe vera gel
What I’m about to offer here are my own opinion statements about aloe vera’s healing benefits. It’s interesting that if I were selling aloe vera myself, I could never make these true statements because the FDA would seize my inventory and shut me down for “selling unapproved drugs.” But I’m not in the aloe vera business, I’m in the business of helping people heal, and I will not censor the truth about the healing powers of aloe vera merely to appease a corrupt Food and Drug Administration that continues to censor and oppress information about the healing benefits of natural medicine.
Here’s what I know about aloe vera’s health benefits:
Aloe vera boosts immune function and destroys cancer tumors
Scientific research shows strong immunomodulatory and antitumour properties for aloe vera polysaccharides. That means the gel helps boosts immune system function while destroying cancer tumors. One study published in International Immunopharmacology (1995) showed that aloe vera polysaccharides exhibited potent macrophage-activating activities including producing increased volumes of nitric oxide (which has antitumor potential).
Click here to read more studies about aloe vera and cancer (Google Scholar).
Personally, I believe that anyone wishing to prevent or cure cancer should seriously investigate aloe vera as part of their recipe for eliminating cancer for life. I wouldn’t rely solely on aloe vera, especially since there are dozens of cancer cures that are now well known in naturopathic medicine. Combining the right herbs (like cat’s claw), superfoods (like spirulina), advanced therapies (like intravenous vitamin C), oxygen therapy and other modalities will give you the best results when battling any form of cancer. Work with a naturopathic physician to learn more.
Aloe vera halts inflammation
Using aloe topically is well known to ease inflammation of joints, reducing arthritis pain. But aloe can also be used internally, reducing inflammation throughout the body from the inside out. People who drink aloe vera for two weeks typically begin to experience a significant reduction of inflammation symptoms.
For a list of studies and references, click here.
Aloe vera enhances skin health
Aloe is one of the most widely-used ingredients in high-grade skin care products. There’s a reason for that: It’s great medicine for the skin! Aloe soothes the skin, hydrates it, nourishes it and accelerates the regeneration of new skin tissue. (In fact, simply removing the gel from a living aloe vera leaf and placing the raw gel on your face is far superior to even the most expensive eye cream or skin care product on the market.) And while most people are only familiar with using aloe vera externally, aloe also enhances skin health when used internally. Drink more aloe and your skin glows!
Click here for scientific studies and references.
Aloe vera stabilizes blood sugar in diabetics
Diabetic patients who take aloe vera for 3 months experience a significant drop in fasting blood sugar levels. They also exhibit lower cholesterol levels and slight improvements in total cholesterol. Numerous clinical studies have been published that demonstrate aloe vera’s antidiabetic properties.
Diabetics are also likely to benefit strongly from aloe vera’s blood enhancements (see below). Since aloe reverses “sludge blood” and boosts circulation to extremities, diabetics suffering from peripheral neuropathy (hands and feet going numb) are likely to benefit strongly from aloe vera supplements.
Click here for more science on aloe vera and diabetes.
Aloe vera lowers cholesterol and triglycerides
When used internally, aloe vera gel improves the quality of the blood and helps rebalance the blood chemistry in a way that lowers cholesterol and total triglycerides (in people with elevated levels). When you consider that blueberries are also powerful cholesterol-lowering medicines, you realize why the Good Cause Wellness Aloe Vera + Blueberry product is such a smart idea: Both ingredients lower high cholesterol! Plus, this is far safer than using statin drugs, which have extremely harmful negative side effects while depleting the body of nutrients such as CoQ10.
My advice to anyone on statin drugs is to strongly consider using high doses of aloe vera + blueberries to safety transition off statin drugs (all under the supervision of a naturopathic physician, of course). Aloe vera won’t kill you like statin drugs can, either. Aloe is completely safe to eat like a food. Given the cholesterol benefits of aloe and blueberries, statin drugs are actually obsolete. There are natural alternatives that are far safer, less expensive and more effective. Aloe vera is one of them.
Click here to read more articles on aloe vera and cholesterol.
Aloe vera relieves joint and muscle pain
This effect is directly related to the inflammation factor mentioned above. It works when used both internally and externally. Essentially, aloe reduces overall inflammation. Of course, is you continue eating a pro-inflammatory diet (red meat, milk, sugar, white flour, fried foods etc.) then you’ll never get rid of all your inflammation with aloe alone, but aloe can help ease your pain while you transition to a healthier lifestyle that eliminates the inflammation for good!
Aloe vera amplifies the antioxidant effects of vitamins
This is an especially interesting effect of aloe: It makes vitamin C, vitamin E and other antioxidants work better! It actually potentiates antioxidants, probably due to its effect on enhancing blood quality and allowing the blood to more effectively transport oxygen and nutrients to the body’s cells. In fact, it is my belief that aloe vera makes everything nutritious work better due to its blood-enhancing effects. If I’m right about that, it means aloe can potentiate anti-cancer herbs, too, helping them more effectively target tumors.
Aloe vera actually contains advanced biochemical technology that the drug companies can only help to understand someday. This technology was built by nature, and it’s 100% compatible with the human body. All you have to do to experience this technology for yourself is eat aloe vera gel!
Read the rest here
Remedies
Today peppermint is grown in Europe and the U.S. It was originally found in London in 1750 and is a hybrid of spearmint and water mint. High oil content is found in the stems and leaves of the plant. These parts are used medicinally.
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