The aloe vera miracle: A natural medicine for cancer, cholesterol, diabetes, inflammation, IBS, and other health conditions

Monday, May 21, 2007 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: aloe vera, aloe vera gel, herbal medicine

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!

Aloe vera cures ulcers, IBS, Crohn's disease and Celiac disease Polysaccharides in the aloe vera plant have curative effects on numerous digestive disorders. The Internet is a storehouse of information and testimonials about aloe vera curing IBS, ulcers, Crohn's disease and other disorders of the digestive tract. This is one of the best-known applications of aloe vera gel.

Taking aloe certainly isn't a magic bullet cure, of course. It won't reverse your disease after drinking one glass of aloe vera gel. It needs to be used regularly. Most people report positive results in 3 - 30 days, depending on the condition.

Aloe vera contains acemannan, a natural immune booster
There's research being done now on the anti-cancer effects of acemannan, a phytonutrient found in aloe vera. In one study, dogs and cats undergoing radiation for cancer were given acemannan as an adjunctive therapy. Not only did the tumors shrink more in the acemannan-treated group, but post-treatment survival was significantly extended. Click here for an abstact on the study.

Google Scholar lists hundreds of links exploring the anti-cancer effects of acemannan. If you browse the studies, you'll realize that acemannan from aloe vera accelerates the destruction of cancer tumors, improves survival time and results in far better recovery from toxic cancer treatments. One study shown here demonstrates that acemannan increases cells' production of nitric oxide (NO), an anti-cancer chemical strongly associated with the shrinking of cancer tumors. Essentially, the more nitric oxide you produce (to a point), the less cancer you have, and acemannan increases the production of nitric oxide. Although this particular research was focused on chickens, the same effect has also been observed in humans.

Throw out your toxic first aid kid: Aloe vera makes everything else obsolete

Aloe vera is antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal. This fact is well known by not just herbalists around the world, but also by anyone with even a hint of common sense. If aloe vera gel wasn't antibacterial, then any little nick or scrape of the aloe plant would result in the whole thing being eaten up by bacteria. Aloe has to be antibacterial simply to survive in the wild! Otherwise, the moist, nutrient-rich gel would be a perfect breeding ground for bacteria.

Aloe vera makes most first aid kits obsolete. You can get rid of all those silly, toxic first aid sprays (antibacteria sprays, lotions, bandages, etc.) and just replace them all with aloe vera. I've been known to pack small chunks of aloe vera gel inside wounds that ultimately healed with zero scarring. As the aloe vera dries, it actually contracts, pulling the wound shut and keeping it completely free of dangerous bacteria. Plus, it provides nourishment to the wound tissue itself. It's also perfect for use on animals, because if they lick the wound, they won't be licking the toxic chemicals found in most first aid products.

Now, I don't mean to imply that aloe vera is a replacement for an emergency room. If you chopped off your finger in a shop accident, you can't just glue it back together with aloe vera gel. Or if your daugher ripped a gash in her leg on a swing set accident, she's probably still going to need stiches, but before you get to the emergency room, aloe vera gel can protect the wound and set the stage for accelerated healing.

Aloe is so useful, in fact, that I take a leaf with me every time I go hiking. It's my portable first aid kit, and when you have aloe, you hardly need anything else. It treats cuts, scrapes, burns, bites, stings, punctures, sprains, sunburns and even bruises. And as a bonus, if you're dying of thirst, you can eat the gel for its water content. An entire multi-billion dollar industry in chemical first aid products and synthetic skin care products is made obsolete by aloe vera. That's why I hope Alan Friedman, the founder of Good Cause Wellness, will soon offer a pure aloe vera gel without any other ingredients. That way, it could be used both as a food supplement AND as a first-aid product.

Aloe vera as a natural food preservative
A thin layer of aloe vera gel can be used as a natural food preservative, eliminating the need for chemical preservatives. Research conducted by Daniel Valero, Ph.D., of the University of Miguel Hernández in Alicante, Spain, showed that a thin layer of aloe vera gel was highly effective in preserving foods. For the experiment, they dipped table grapes into an aloe vera gel, then stored them at refrigerator temperatures. Untreated table graped went bad in 7 days, but the grapes dipped in aloe vera stayed fresh and tast for as astonishing 35 days! Click here to read the ScienceDaily article on this.

Because of this remarkable ability, aloe vera gel could revolutionize food safety around the world. Dipping fruits and vegetables in aloe vera gel would eliminate e.coli, preserve freshness, and greatly extend shelf life. So why isn't anybody doing this with aloe? Probably because, once again, aloe vera gel can't be patented. And it's easier and cheaper for food companies to simply add synthetic chemicals to foods than to switch to something safe and natural.

But that doesn't mean you can't do this yourself! Soon, a pure aloe vera gel product (with no added flavors) will likely be made available at Good Cause Wellness (www.GoodCauseWellness.com) . You can simply mix some powder with purified water to make your own gel, then dip fruits and vegetables in the gel yourself. Apples, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, peaches, potatoes, grapes and many other food items can be preserved in this way. And when you're done dipping produce in the gel, you can either drink the gel in a smoothie or put it on your skin as a skin rejuvenation treatment. None of the aloe goes to waste, and your fruits and vegetables will last far longer! (This is especially useful for organic produce, which tends to ripen more quickly.)

Aloe vera extends lifespan
A study on rats showed aloe vera extends lifespan by 10 percent. The abstract on this study, shown here, explains the following:

A summary of results are as follows: Aloe ingestion, both crude and processed, was shown to extend (10%) average life span and slow the mortality rate doubling time. Also, several beneficial effects from aloe ingestion on age-related disease were found: Group 2 and 3 showed a lower incidence of atrial thrombosis than Group 1. Furthermore, Group 2 showed a significantly lower incidence of fatal chronic nephropathy and occurrence of multiple causes of death compared to the control group. All groups ingesting aloe showed a slightly lower incidence of fatal leukemia. Moreover, no adverse, toxic effects were found with the ingestion of aloe vera.

"Nephropathy" simply means kidney disorders, by the way. So this is explaining that aloe vera reduces kidney disease and other causes of death. It also demonstrated a lower rate of leukemia, which is an interesting finding given that so many children today still eat hot dogs laced with cancer-causing sodium nitrite (a chemical added by junk food companies to turn the meat red), and sodium nitrite causes leukemia and brain tumors, among other cancers. You can read more about the dangers of sodium nitrite by clicking here.

Aloe vera ends acid reflux disease
Acid reflux isn't really a disease. The drug companies just call it that to convince everyone that they need to take medications to ease the symptoms. But in reality, all you probably need is aloe vera. Drink aloe vera gel on a regular basis, and your heartburn symptoms will usually vanish within a few days. Of course, it would also help if you'd stop eating fried foods and processed foods.

Aloe vera heals radiation burns from radiation cancer treatments
For those cancer treatment victims who have been maimed by radiotherapy treatments (which don't cure cancer, by the way: the treatments are largely a medical hoax), applying aloe vera topically to the radiation area will rapidly accelerate the healing response. Consuming aloe vera internally will also help heal radiation burns. Of course, it's smarter to avoid radiation in the first place, since the procedure actually causes cancer just like mammograms do.

A complete discussion of the fraud in modern cancer treatments would require another article entirely, but the short version is that the cancer industry has no interest whatsoever in actually curing or preventing cancer and, instead, generates windfall profits through ongoing cancer treatments that only harm or kill patients. Chemotherapy, radiation and surgery for cancer are largely medical frauds, and mammography is actually an insidious recruiting system that scares women into unnecessary treatments for cancers they often don't even have. (The rate of false positives is shockingly high, and mammography has been scientifically proven to harm 10 women for every one woman that it helps.)

If you undergo such barbaric procedures, note that using aloe vera (both internally and externally) can greatly improve your results by protecting you from the treatment itself. Of course, modern oncologists are simultaneously so arrogant and ignorant that they will insist you take nothing that might "interfere" with their poisons, which is why people who foolishly believe in modern oncology are rapidly removing themselves from the human gene pool.

You'll find the research on aloe vera and radiation by clicking here. The abstract states:

Radiomodifying effects of the leaf extract of Aloe vera were observed on the testes of Swiss albino mice at 50 and 100 mg/kg dose levels. This extract was non-toxic when injected up to 800 mg/kg, and significant enhancement in survival time of the irradiated group was observed. In addition, treatment reduced radiation-induced damage to germ cells and loss in body weight.

Got that? The key concepts here are "significant enhancement in survival time" (the mice lived longer), and a reduction in radiation-induced damage to germ cells, meaning that the DNA in your sperm remains more intact. That's a good thing unless you really want to have mutant children someday or have an unnatural desire to watch your genitals shrivel and die (another side effect from radiation therapy).

Aloe vera cures gum disease
Want a simple, effective cure for gum disease? It's easy: Just sprinkle some of this aloe vera powder on your toothbrush before brushing. The aloe vera powder actually heals gums and eliminates gum disease.

Merely drinking the aloe also helps heal your gums: Just swish the liquid around your mouth a few times before each swallow. You'll be bathing your gums in healing aloe gel, and they'll begin to heal rapidly. Even severe cases of gum disease can be completely cured in a matter of weeks using aloe vera gel. (By the way, most people with gum disease are also chronically deficient in vitamin D, so if you boost your vitamin D intake while treating your gums with aloe vera gel, your results will be greatly accelerated!)

Aloe vera heals burns, cuts and scrapes
When used externally, aloe is the best wound dressing ever discovered, far exceeding the capability of even the most advanced emergency room wound dressings. It works by simultaneously sealing the wound while attracting an increased flow of blood to the wound, acclerating wound healing. Aloe has been known to heal third-degree burn victims with no scarring and to restore burned skin that would have normally died. Every emergency room in every hospital around the world should have aloe vera on hand, but they'd rather stock chemical medicines than far more effective aloe vera gel from nature (you can't patent aloe vera gel, so there's no profit incentive).

Aloe vera gel is extremely effective in wound care. Large chunks of aloe vera gel can literally be packed inside wounds such as gunshot wounds or tissue tears. Placed directly on or in the wound, it kills bacteria, prevents infection and actually nourishes the traumatized tissues while sealing the wound against outside infection. Nothing beats aloe for emergency trauma medicine. If the U.S. military had any sense, they'd be carrying aloe vera leaves around to treat soldiers suffering from shrapnel wounds and explosion burns.

Aloe vera saves animals and human from severe hemorrhagic shock (blood loss)

Here's a fascinating use of phytonutrients found in aloe vera. I've talked about this in previous articles but never discussed it in detail until now. It turns out that special polymers found in aloe vera gel have the ability to potentiate the oxygen carrying capacity of blood.

What do I mean by that? I mean that aloe vera gel turns sludgy, oxygen-depleted blood into smooth-flowing oxygen-rich blood! It's being used experimentally right now by the U.S. military to save the lives of soldiers who have lost enormous amounts of blood from battlefield injuries. The original research was done on rats (see below) by unethical researchers who kill rats for a living. They bled out the rats, removing up to 3.15mL of blood per 100g of rat body weight (which is a huge amount of blood when you consider the small size of the rats), then tried to resuscitate them by injecting a polymer made from aloe vera. The study showed phenomenal improvements in the resuscitation, blood pressure and survival in the group receiving the aloe vera polymer.

What it means is that the aloe vera made the remaining blood work better. And this was done in rats who, believe it or not, have far healthier diets than the average U.S. consumer. By using aloe vera in humans, the improvement in the "sludge blood" found in most U.S. adults would be nothing less than astonishing. Drug companies, of course, want to isolate some chemical found in aloe vera and turn it into a patentable drug. But that's entirely unnecessary. Just eat aloe vera gel and you get the benefits. Besides, the benefits are not due to one isolated chemical, they're made possible by a symphony of supporting phytonutrients. That's something that all the minds in western pharmaceutical science today still can't understand: the synergy of healing compounds from nature.

Aloe vera gel is one of my own secrets to strong athletic performance. People who know me at the gym call me a "cardio machine." They even gave me a nickname in Capoeira that means "The Machine." Because at age 38, I'm out-performing twenty years olds. One of my secrets is simply that I frequeuntly eat raw aloe vera gel. It makes my blood carry more oxygen to enhance the function of my tissues and organs. That gives me a strong "oxygen advantage" over everyone else, because almost nobody else eats aloe vera (they're too closed minded to even consider the possibility of what it might do for them). So while others are eating poisonous foods and taking toxic drugs, I'm eating nutrient-dense superfoods and taking aloe vera.

The effect is so powerful that I'm fairly certain as soon as professional athletes figure this out, they're going to start doping with aloe vera gel. They'll cycle farther, swim faster and recover more quickly from any physical exercise. Aloe vera gel turns normal blood into super-oxygenated blood. But you have to eat a lot of it. I blend up an entire leaf (a piece of gel about the size of my forearm) in a smoothie and drink that. You can't expect huge benefits from taking tiny nibbles of aloe vera. You have to make it part of your diet. Eat it like food.

Click here for the PubMed abstract on this study.

Reducing stroke and heart attacks

Now, if you know anything about the cause of strokes and heart attacks, you realize that enhancing the quality of the blood will have a significant impact on reducing heart attacks and strokes. To my knowledge, there aren't any strong studies measuring this effect yet, but I have no doubt there will be in time. Eating aloe vera is like adding an all-natural non-stick additive to your blood flow. It stops blood cells from clumping together, which is part of what causes a stroke.

Dark-field microscopy is a technique for viewing live human blood vessels. As with any truly useful technology for preventing disease without drugs and surgery, it's been censored and oppressed by the medical establishment, but what's interesting about dark-field microscopy is that it shows the form and structure of your blood cells. You can actually see how your blood cells are shaped and whether they clump together. Most people's blood cells clump together because they live on a disease-inducing diet of fried foods, homogenized dairy fats, saturated animal fats, hydrogenated oils and other deadly foods. These massive clumps of blood cells slow bloodflow and can ultimately get lodged in the capillaries of the circulatory system, blocking off nutrients and oxygen to tissues and brain cells. Aloe vera, on the other hand, causes sticky blood to become "unsticky blood," making it flow like it should -- one blood cell at a time -- so that oxygen and nutrients can reach every last organ and cell in your body.

The fact that aloe vera can reverse "sludge blood" while allowing the blood to carry more oxygen means that it will quite obviously reduce heart attacks and strokes. In fact, it will also reduce high blood pressure because part of the reason blood pressure is so high in some people is because their blood has turned into a thick, viscious liquid that flows like molasses. Basic physics tells you that a thicker liquid will take more pressure to pump through any system. By reducing the viscosity and making the bood flow in a more frictionless manner, blood pressure is automatically lowered.

There are many other benefits that come from eating aloe vera gel, too, such as increased blood flow to the brain, which might mean a reduction in Alzheimer's progression, improved learning, enhanced memory and better cognitive function. These benefits have yet to be proven in studies, but just because the studies haven't been done doesn't mean the aloe isn't already providing these benefits to those who take it. Since there's no money to be made from studing aloe vera, the science will lag behind reality by several decades. Most of the best healing benefits of herbs remain unstudied because there's no profit motive to fund such studies. So don't expect scientists to be leaping at the opportunity to "prove" that aloe vera has all these health benefits. Just eat it yourself and observe your own health improvements. You get the benefits regardless of whether a journal has published statistics about those benefits.

What's in aloe vera gel:

• Water
• 20 minerals
• 12 vitamins
• 18 amino acids
• 200 active plant compounds (phytonutrients), including:
• Enzymes
• Triterpenes (a phytonutrient that lowers blood sugar)
• Glyconutrients & glycoproteins
• Polysaccharides, including:
• Acemannan, mannose-6-phosphate polymannans
• Phenolic glycosides, including:
• Dihydrocoumarins

Mike Adams' Miracle Aloe Very Smoothie Recipe

• 1 large fresh, raw aloe vera leaf gel (or low-temperature dried aloe vera gel powder if you don't have fresh plants)
• 1 scoop Jay Robb's egg white protein powder (unsweetened)
• 2 cups fresh berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or a combination)
• 1 quart Blue Diamond unsweetened almond milk (or soy milk or whatever milk you drink)
• 1/2 teaspoon stevia or 2 tablespoond agave nectar (or your favorite sweetener)
• (Optional) 1 cup cooked quinoa (adds protein and fiber to the drink)
• 1-2 cups of water (see below)

Instructions: Add all the ingredients except the water and aloe vera gel. Blend until it's a smooth liquid (using a Vita-Mix blender is recommended). Add aloe vera and additional water as your last step, then blend for no more than 10 seconds. Resulting thickness should be like a milkshake. Drink and enjoy!

Find more smoothie recipes in my book, Superfood Smoothies. I have home-grown recipes for halting degenerative disease, ending digestive disorders, lowering cholesterol and much more, all using delicious natural medicine from fruits and vegetables!

Note: Fresh aloe vera has virtually no taste. Other forms of aloe will have a slightly bitter taste, so you may need to add more sweetener if using dried aloe vera. I always recommend using fresh, raw aloe vera right out of your yard if possible. Nothing is superior to the living, raw plant, but the low-temperature dried aloe vera mentioned here is the next best thing.

Notes on using aloe vera

If you've never eaten aloe before, be sure to take only a small amount at first. I've never heard of anyone having an allergy to aloe vera, but you never know until you try it.

In any case, after taking large amounts of aloe vera, you may feel some difference in your digestion for a few days. If you've been constipated, aloe will likely reduce its severity, and you may notice a far easier time passing stools. If you've had stomach pains or intestinal pains, you'll likely notice them easing or vanishing completely. Aloe vera is the best internal medicine for the treatment of colon polyps, in my opinion. It soothes the intestinal tract and helps heal pre-cancerous lesions or growths. In fact, a raw juice diet using vegetable and fruit juices combined with aloe vera gel is practically a miracle cure for early-stage colon cancer. Think of it as a raw juice fast + aloe vera. It's a very powerful cleansing recipe.

To blend or not to blend?

Because aloe vera contains many beneficial long-chain polysaccharides, I have often wondered whether blending the gel in a Vita-Mix might cause some of the polysaccharides to be broken. I've come to the conclusion that it's best to add the aloe vera as the LAST ingredient so it gets blended the least, thereby minimizing any potential shredding of the polysaccharides.

So whether you're using raw aloe vera gel or a dried aloe vera powder, blend all your other ingredients first, adding aloe vera as the last ingredient. Try to blend the aloe for the shortest time necessary.

Where to learn more

AloeCorp QMatrix low-temperature technology: http://www.aloecorp.com/back.php?name=qmatrix

The International Aloe Science Council research page: http://www.iasc.org/articles.html

Wikipedia page on aloe vera: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe_vera

Brief history of aloe vera at: http://www.qni.com/~gic/herb/aloevera.htm

Short summary from the link above:
"Aloe, native to Africa, is also known as "lily of the desert", the "plant of immortality", and the "medicine plant". The name was derived from the Arabic alloeh meaning "bitter" because of the bitter liquid found in the leaves. In 1500 B.C. Egyptians recorded use of the herbal plant in treating burns, infections and parasites.

There are over 500 species of aloe growing in climates worldwide. Ancient Greeks, Arabs and Spaniards have used the plant throughout the millennia. African hunters still rub the gel on their bodies to reduce perspiration and their scent.

Extensive research since the 1930's has shown that the clear gel has a dramatic ability to heal wounds, ulcers and burns by putting a protective coating on the affected areas and speeding up the healing rate."