Talk:Aloe

This article is shit

i really do like this article it is very awesome.

The phrase "The dose is 130-320 mg, that of aloin being 30-130 mg. " What sort of way is that to start a paragraph? The portion that follows that line is overly scientific, and meaningless to a layman. What's a "haemorrhoid" anyway and where's the hyperlink? "The drug is obviously contraindicated" Obviously? What the hell is obvious about that?

Eh, the whole article just pisses me off...

Contrary to my edit summary, I moved User:Yann's photo to Agave, since Century plant already had a good picture of a plant in bloom. —JerryFriedman 18:46, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

why does Aloe vera redirects to here? bah! -Pedro 19:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

This page has alot of issues. It reads choppily and the section on medicinal uses is barely comprehensible. 66.68.101.3 15:02, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to start on a cleanup, and removed a few small bits I couldn't find documentation for. But it needs a lot more - MPF 13:25, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

• • Removing information just because you ignore is not a good thing to be done. -Pedro 15:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

The article seems to be... self conflicting somewhat. For example They are native to the drier parts of Africa, especially South Africa's Cape Province and the mountains of tropical Africa. and This is often the most common known use of the plant and the rubbing of aloe vera leaves onto sun-burned skin dates back to civilizations such as the Mayas and the Incas I do wonder how the Incas and Mayas could use a plant that, according to the article, grows only in Africa... Wish someone knowledgeable could fix this article Ghilz

Many will undoubtedly disagree with me, but I think a complete rewrite will do this article much good. As for the Maya and Inca stuff, that's just complete nonsense. Sjschen 02:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Aloe Vera Benefits to Skin

I merged this article with aloe. The content is in the "unproven" benefits section. The information needs to be verified. -- Kjkolb 11:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Are the previous comments debating whether aloe is proven/effective as a topical skin treatment or the other alleged benefits such as lowering blood sugar, use as a laxative, anti cancer agent and asthma treatment? Your information regarding a study which supported it's use as a burn relief agent seems to substantiate aloe's use in this area. Perhaps you could add information detailing how the plant soothes burns in humans. Is it the amino acids or vitamins contained in the plant that produces the soothing results? This could help to support these claims.

sorry i triple posted this info. . . i'm a novice--Mickydog 15:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I did fnd some information on the vitamins and minerals that are in aloe vera that will be useful to add to the benefits section. Thank you for the comment-it helps to add evidence to my claims. --Heatherlange24 00:08, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

HELFUL HINTS:

I think that this article needs a little improvement. There are sections that are too wordy and too confusing to understand. I think that the good points would be all of the uses and the history of the uses. It might be a good idea to explain more about how the mayas and aztecs used aloe and how it was discovered. I think that the first picture is good, but the others are not as necessary. Overall I found it interesting but around the middle I found myself loosing interest because of the wordiness, maybe try to use some simpler words. Arobutz

I removed that black and white picture of the plant. it blocks the text (in a firefox browser, anyway) and it wasn't that good looking anyway. -Guy

I understand that there have been some perhaps overly aggressive multi-level marketing operations who have may have oversold Aloe's benefits. But, as with the Dan Rather-Memogate case (just because the memos saying W was AWOL were phony doesn't mean W WASN'T AWOL), the shadiness and agressiveness of SOME Aloe miracle-cure marketers should not blind us to some pertinent facts:

(1) As mentioned in the current Wiki article itself, Aloe contains 19 of the 20-22 Aminos, and 7 of the 8 Essential Aminos. It's also very rich in a broad and comprehensive array of Vitamins and Minerals.

(2) It also is a very good source of some Glyconutrients -- which have been getting quite a lot of buzz lately, not only on the web but also from Big Pharma (currently pursuing about 15 trials to see if they can "package" these Glyconutrients). Glyconutrients are getting a lot of attention because they seem to function as a "communication" medium between cells -- making them important in situations such as apoptosis (where "bad" eg cancerous cells get killed) and immunity (where "bad" eg foreign cells also meet the same end). The "communication" function of glyconutrients reminds one of the proximity between cells providing host immunity and cells involved in the neurological system -- and communication, intelligence, and immunity are intuitively similar functions, it being necessary for natural killer cells, macrophages, etc to quickly "learn" and adapt to foreign pathogens and home-ground neoplasms -- the better to snuff them.

This could all seem like touchy-feely bullshit if it weren't for all those Big Pharma companies researching glyconutrients... Check out Acemannan or Mannose -- a glyconutrient very present in Aloe. Both naturopaths and Big Pharma and a few peer-reviewed papers have spread a lot of buzz about Acemannan -- so this isn't just the multi-level marketing scams talking.

I think that in order for the main Aloe article to be properly "balanced" in the Wiki sense, we need to go a BIT more into the lab results that led to the FDA's approval of injectable Acemannan in 1994 -- and the later studies leading up to their ban of it.

Personal disclosure -- I chop huge leaves from the plant and put the gel in a blender (NOT the green skin of the aloe leaf (which is the laxative part overly emphasized in the current wiki article, and which, as a protective integument, is OBVIOUSLY going to have a very different function than the inside) -- just the succulent interior, a gooey gel which I also rub all over including IN my eyes and nose. -- ScottAlexander