Aloe in Alternative Medicine Practice

Aloe Vera can easily be incorporated into practice in Clinics of Nutritional Medicine, Naturopathy, Herbalism, Iridology, Kinesiology, Vega Testing and Mora Therapy, Colonics, Aromatherapy and Reflexology. It can be similarly used by Practitioners of Dowsing and Radionics. Within more orthodox practice, it can be used in conjunction with Physiotherapy. This newsletter examines the rationale that lies behind the use of Aloe in these contexts, looks at what is involved in incorporating Aloe into practice, gives guidance on the types of product that are needed and recommends a range of possible doses.

The Practitioner's Thinking which lies behind Treatment with Aloe

Practitioners who have assimilated the contents of Aloe vera Information Service NewsLetters 1-4 will by this time have abundant reasons for regarding Aloe with a great deal of respect as a powerful herbal remedy with multifaceted potency within the widest field of "healing". At the same time many readers may have been quite properly impressed with Aloe's powers in specific healing directions, such as those applying to those named medical conditions which have been subjected to trials with Aloe for potential therapeutic application. For yet other people, who perhaps suffer from no illness or significant symptoms, the attraction of Aloe may well be its potential for maintaining good health by a general "toning up" effect, which is inherent in Aloe's fundamental actions, especially those having to do with maintaining or improving the condition of the immune system and increasing the oxygen consumption, and therefore the activity levels, within the tissues. These, effects, most emphatically, appear to offer a very positive route to the avoidance of the partially de-oxygenated, low-activity and toxic condition which is recognised, naturopathically and vitalistically, as constituting the state of "chronicity". Furthermore, whilst this state of "chronicity" is the major predisposing factor towards chronic illness, it does not yet form part of the philosophy and outlook of mainstream medicine. Notwithstanding this, the concept is nonetheless wholly compatible with the principles of modern medical biochemistry.

It will be clear why Aloe gets dubbed with emotive terms such as "The Silent Healer" and even "Panacea". This happens, even among quite well informed users of Aloe, not just people who are easily influenced by hype and imagination. It does so because the nature of the fundamental actions of Aloe are to improve the status of some vitally important systems of the body which affect many functions. In this way it improves, generally, the biochemical status, activity levels and metabolic and functional competence of cells. Obviously, any such influence will be a most positive factor in keeping the individual safer than they would otherwise be, from developing chronic diseases in general. The painstaking process, which no doubt will have to be gone through, of thoroughly testing Aloe in clinical trials against every known chronic disease, is, to a certain extent superfluous within the philosophy of anyone who truly understands the fundamental modes of action of this remarkable herb.

It is, to a certain extent, inevitable that the fundamental changes which Aloe is capable of making within the body will help the body to fend off each and every chronic disease. Much though that may sound like a heresy to strictly orthodox clinicians, whose medical philosophy requires them to look at each and every labelled medical condition as though it were a separate entity, this author, who is himself so deeply rooted in medical science, now regards this as a truism, and that conclusion emanates from deep enquiry into the biochemical actions of Aloe at the cellular level. There is, indeed, every reason, through a process of scientific inference, to believe that each and every chronic disease will be found to respond, to greater or lesser degree, to Aloe. The most likely exception to this is those genetic illnesses which are wholly determined by genetic error, but even with these there is a chance that the overall medical condition of the patient will be better for a certain toning up of cellular metabolism, such as Aloe can bring. This author's exploration of the literature has found a general absence of negative results when people have tried the use of Aloe against chronic disease. Some of the papers on the subject report that 100% of patients responded to Aloe or very nearly so.

How does Aloe relate to specific Disciplines within Alternative and Complementary Medicine?

Nutritional Medicine

For the Practitioner whose prime field is Nutritional Medicine, Aloe vera can be seen in the role of a quite unique adjunct of the Therapy. Although Aloe is often advocated for its content of nutrients, this is not really a key point, nor even a very significant point at all about Aloe. Naturally, Aloe, being a plant juice, contains some protein, carbohydrate and lipid, contains minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium, and some vitamins, but the amounts of these are low. Because Aloe is the juice of a plant which is adapted to water-storage, its juice is very dilute, the gel containing about 0.5 - 0.7% of total solids and the Whole Leaf Extract about 1.0 - 2.0% of total solids. Most other plant juices are much more concentrated than this. Given these low concentrations, and the modest volumes of the juice which are used for therapy, the quantities of nutrients taken in with a daily dose of Aloe are very small compared to dietary intakes. Therefore, one does not use Aloe for its nutrient content. Instead, Aloe is to be uniquely valued for its content of active biochemicals. These are substances which interact with living cells in very small amounts, producing significant changes to cell metabolism and cell behaviour. These substances interact with specialized receptors on the cell surface to produce these changes, in a way which might be described as "pharmacological". Yet the substances within Aloe which are doing this are entirely non-toxic natural substances and they leave no residues in the tissues.

Aloe, of course, must be classified as an adjunct to the Nutritional Therapist, simply because Aloe itself is not a food. But it is a powerful one, containing more potent stimulatory substances than any food, in its own unique combination. Used in this way it greatly enhances the efforts of the Practitioner to support the patient's immune system, to promote healing, to cleanse and to relieve inflammatory conditions.

Naturopathy

Because of the nature of Aloe's actions, this plant is a natural ally of the Naturopathic Practitioner. Its cleansing effect, which is so completely in accord with the precepts of the Western Naturopathic system of thought, is most probably mediated through the effects of Aloe upon the immune system and those which it exerts upon the alimentary system. The healing action depends partly upon the direct stimulatory effect upon fibroblasts and other cell types and partly upon the consequences of the tissues being better cleansed. For the dedicated naturopathic it is obvious to use a potent cleansing herb to augment the benefits of their other cleansing procedures.

Herbalism

To a herbalist Aloe is home ground, as it is unquestionably a herbal remedy. Herbalists should also note all that has been said above about the relative lack of nutrients in Aloe. But then the same is true of herbs in general. They are often recommended in herbal texts for their content of some specified nutrient, such as iron, for example, and yet they rarely contain any significant amount of the named nutrient in the small quantity of herb likely to be consumed in a day's dose. It usually takes either foods or concentrated nutritional supplements to deliver significant amounts of nutrients and the claim to do so with small doses of herbs is almost always misleading. Most active herbs, like Aloe, depend for their action upon pharmacologically active compounds present in small concentrations. The herbalist therefore needs to be aware of using the herbs for these specific biomedical effects which depend upon interactions between the living cell and the active compounds.

Iridology

Iridology is a purely diagnostic discipline which only makes any sense when it is naturopathically interpreted, since the iris only yields information in naturopathic terms. Iridologists are therefore almost always either naturopathic, nutritional or herbal Practitioners who are used to using these various disciplines as a means of therapy once the iridology diagnosis has been reached. They will almost certainly find that Aloe has the strongest possible appeal to them as a powerful therapeutic tool, which will make real changes in the iris signs, which signify progress being made in identifiable parts of the body with cleansing, healing and the relief of inflammation.

Osteopathy and Massage

Physical therapists obviously treat conditions which manifest as physical problems. These may arise from injuries or from metabolic deterioration of structural parts. When osteopaths or masseurs treat a patient for a condition which results from injury they are faced with both damage and inflammation. Both the healing and anti-inflammatory actions of Aloe can be engaged at once to assist in these cases.

Practitioners of therapeutic massage who do massage directed to the purpose of lymphatic drainage, have a particular reason for seeking the help of Aloe as an adjunct of their treatment. The cell-types of the lymphatic system are one and the same with those of the immune system. When the flow of the lymphatic vessels is stimulated by the massage, the flow through the lymph glands is necessarily improved. These important concentrations of lymphatic cells are thereby helped in their cleansing by the massage and if Aloe is used at the same time, then these two actions, both aiming at essentially the same end, will augment one another and the benefits may well be synergistic.

Acupuncture and Homoeopathy

These therapies are considered together here because they are prime energy therapies of great importance within the field as a whole. Aloe, so far as we know, does not become directly involved in the correction of subtle energy imbalances, but rather does so indirectly through relieving the Life Force from some of the burdens of toxicity and enhancing vitality through its stimulating actions upon tissue cells of different types. Those energy medicine Practitioners who do use diet and supplements as well should gain even more of a fillip to their treatments from employing Aloe as well. One needs to remember here that Aloe does not replace any aspect of Nutrition, so the benefits of Aloe plus Nutrition are generally found to be additive.

Kinesiology and VEGA Testing and MORA Testing and Therapy

The use of subtle testing of patients via muscle testing and by using the higher human faculties combined with electronic methods, is done, of course to diagnose conditions, but also to select treatment, either homoeopathic, herbal or nutritional, while in the case of MORA, direct treatment is being applied through the equipment. These Practitioners will probably want to ask, through their diagnostic techniques, whether Aloe should be used. The known effects of Aloe are, as we have seen in previous NewsLetters, so broad spectrum in their relationship to pathologies, that probably there will be few who are not diagnosed as requiring or benefiting from Aloe.

Colonic Irrigation

Any cleansing therapy can synergize with the cleansing action of Aloe being taken by mouth during the same period when colonic washout therapy is being applied will strengthen the cleansing effect simply by combining these two approaches to cleansing which operate in different ways, one internally and the other externally, bearing in mind that the colonic lumen is regarded as being outside the body. The benefits here will be much the same as those of combining Aloe with any other, distinctly different approach to cleansing, and the effects are almost certain to be synergistic. There is, however, one further bonus. The colonics therapist can use Aloe directly in the washout fluid, or leave the Aloe-containing fluid in contact with the bowel lining for a time, to work directly upon inflammatory conditions of the colon itself.

Selection of the right Aloe Products for Practitioner Use

Any user of Aloe should bear in mind the recent history of Aloe, which is that whilst it has marvellous credentials as a curative herbal remedy, it has been much abused by the unscrupulous acts of certain suppliers. They have diluted the extracts with water and extended it dishonestly by the addition of inactive maltodextrin, dextrose or glycerol.

Whole Leaf Extract manufactured correctly contains a higher concentration of total solids than any Gel extract. The total solids level is from 1.6 to 3 times higher in the Whole Leaf Extract than in the extract made just from Gel. This author interprets the evidence as clearly indicating that the best source of Aloe for most purposes will be the Whole Leaf Extract.

Dosage and Usage of Whole Leaf Extract

Manufacturers produce Whole Leaf Extract (a) at its natural strength, (b) at various levels of concentrate produced by evaporation - typically from twice the natural strength to ten times or more and (c) dried powders produced from Whole Leaf Extract by evaporation followed by freeze-drying. Some of the most suitable products for general use are likely to contain between 10,000 and 15,000mg per litre of methanol precipitable solids, (MPS).

Dosage recommendations for this particular type of product would be from 25ml per day for mildly therapeutic use, 50ml per day for average therapeutic use and 75 to 100ml per day for stronger therapeutic applications. The product would be better taken one hour away from other food and drink (i.e. not eating or drinking for 1 hour either before or after the dose) and in the last two dose levels (therapeutic use) the daily dose should be divided between two half-doses per day, e.g., 25ml twice per day or 50ml twice per day.