The richest pharmacy ever – our nature – is really the most amazing thing a human being can imagine. What is more important, we can use its means for lessening the symptoms of many health disorders or even eliminating some illnesses. Multiple trees, bushes, and herbs, created by nature, are crammed with components beneficial for our health due to their healing properties and power to restore and renew vitality of a human body.
The most wonderful and awesome thing about herbs is that each of them can fight more than one disease. For example, the well-known and even famous Aloe Vera can be helpful in healing skin wounds, suppressing the growth of cancer cells, treating constipation, etc.
One more benefit of this herb pertains to the disease, which tortures so many people nowadays – diabetes. Historic use and resent research evidence that Aloe Vera can help the sufferers of diabetes type 2 lead better life, experience less symptoms of the disease, and feel healthier and stronger.
Scientists, who became interested in this herb and conducted many trials to discover its properties and prove the benefits promoted by herbalists, state that Aloe Vera works in the human organism by stimulating the production of insulin by the pancreas. Besides, oral extract of the herb improves cardiovascular system functioning, which is very important, since diabetic patients are at the greater risk of experiencing cardiovascular problems. Aloe Vera also has positive influence on the liver.
One more advantage of such treatment is that the herb enhances vitamins C and E influence on the body, while diabetes mellitus blocks their antioxidant effect preventing the organism from absorption these vitamins into the bloodstream.
It is a well-known fact that many patients start gaining weight in the course of diabetes symptoms treatment. Aloe Vera allows its users to avoid such problem, treating diabetes without weight gain. This also belongs to the already discovered merits of the herb, and it is naturally to suggest that this benefit is not the last in the list and the future studies will find more.
As for the trials already conducted, the majority of them were done in Turkey and Thailand. One of the studies was organized by Mahidol University scientists (Bangkok, Thailand). Thirty-six patients were given one tablespoon of 80% juice of Aloe Vera twice a day during 42 days. Another thirty-six patients from the control group received similarly flavored carminative mixture.
By the end of the trial blood sugar and triglycerides levels in the treatment group were significantly reduced (to 43% and 45% of the initial values correspondingly). Cholesterol levels remained unchanged. It is important to note that no adverse reactions (weight gain, appetite changes) were reported.
Another study at the same University discovered that Aloe Vera possesses the power to reduce blood sugar levels in patients unresponsive to glibenclamide – a medication used to stimulate pancreas function. In fact, it was reported that Aloe given alone showed the same results as the combination of the above mentioned medicine and the herb.
Long-lasting trials also report about Aloe Vera effectiveness in blood sugar levels reduction. For example, a five-year study showed a significant drop in the glucose level of 3,167 diabetic patients, who were given parboiled Aloe Vera leaves (120 grams twice a day).
In general, scientists tend to agree with herbalists that Aloe can be of great help in controlling diabetes symptoms. However, these days the emphasis is made on the fact that further research is needed to define the necessary dose of the herb, timeframe of the treatment period, and the most effective form of the herbal remedy (alcohol extract, juice, dried sap, fresh leaves, etc).