home remedy Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Is Aloe Effective for Blood Pressure, Inflammatory Bowel, Wound Healing, and Burns?

AHA Publisher — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:00:35 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – I discuss the risks and benefits of aloe vera. “Aloe vera is one of the most popular home remedies in use today, yet most physicians know little about it. In fact, most dismiss it as useless while their patients firmly believe in its healing properties…The usual tendency of most physicians and nurses is to dismiss as useless any popular remedy that can be purchased without a prescription. However, the aloe plant deserves a closer look because, surprising as it may seem, there may be a scientific basis for some of its uses.” It has, after all, been used medicinally for thousands of years by a number of ancient civilizations, but only recently has it been put it to the test, as I discuss in my video Is Aloe Effective for Blood Pressure, Inflammatory Bowel, Wound Healing, and Burns?. What type of tests, though? Ones that investigate whether aloe can ameliorate damage to albino rat testicles or affect the cholesterol and estrogen responses in juvenile goldfish? Indeed, if you inject aloe into the bloodstream of rats, their blood pressure drops, but if you feed it to humans, it doesn’t appear to have any blood pressure–lowering effect. Drinking aloe causescolorectal tumors to form in rats, whereas it appears to have anti-inflammatory effects on human intestinal lining in a petri dish. But, when put to the test for irritable bowel syndrome (IBD), no benefit was found for improving symptoms or improving quality of life in IBS patients. And, no benefit was found for IBD either. What about the beneficial effects of aloe in wound healing? Evidently, they are “so miraculous as to seem more like myth than fact.” It works when you slice open guinea pigs or try to frostbite-off the ears of bunny rabbits, as you can see at 1:49 in my video (though, be warned about graphic images), but in people, it may make things worse. Indeed, “aloe vera…is associated with a delay in wound healing.” Researchers studied 21 women who had wound complications after having a cesarean or other abdominal surgery. Healing on their own took an average of 53 days, whereas the wounds treated with aloe vera gel required 83 days, taking 50 percent longer. Researchers thought the aloe would help, based on the animal studies, but when it was put to the test with people, it failed. At this point in my research, it was looking like the only benefit of aloe was to improve the quality of cheap beef burgers, as one study found. But what about burns? Aloe has been used to treat burns since antiquity, but, in their ageless wisdom, people were also applying feces to burns, so I wouldn’t put too much faith in ancient medical traditions. That’s why we have science. What is the effectiveness of aloe vera gel compared with silver sulphadiazine as burn wound dressing in second-degree burns? “The introduction of topical antimicrobial agents has resulted in a significant reduction in burn mortality to date.” Silver sulfadiazine is the most commonly used, but, unfortunately, it may delay wound healing and become toxic to the kidneys and bone marrow. So, researchers tried it head-to-head against topical aloe gel. The result? The burns treated with aloe healed 50 percent faster, and the pain went away about 30 percent faster. The researchers concluded that aloe has “remarkable efficacy” in the treatment of burn injuries. Anyone see the flaw in that logic? What was this study missing? A placebo control group. Why would that matter? Remember, one of the side effects of the silver sulphadiazine is delayed wound healing. So, maybe the aloe worked better just because it wasn’t delaying healing but it wouldn’t have worked better than nothing at all. When it was put to the test against nothing—aloe vera in Vaseline versus the Vaseline alone—the aloe really did seem to help, speeding up healing by about a third. And, indeed, if you put all the studies together, aloe vera does appear to significantly speed up the healing of second-degree burns. Blistering burns, however, are thankfully less common than burns like sunburns, where your skin just turns red. What is the efficacy of aloe vera in the prevention and treatment of sunburn? An aloe vera cream was applied to study subjects 30 minutes before, immediately after, or both before and after they were burned with a UV lamp. Surprisingly, the “results showed that the aloe vera cream has no sunburn or suntan protection and no efficacy in sunburn treatment when compared to placebo.” It at least works for blistering burns, though, so should we keep some aloe vera gel in the medicine cabinet? The problem is that aloe vera you buy at the store may not contain any aloe vera at all. The product labels may say aloe vera is the first or second ingredient, but manufacturers apparently can be lying. “There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are,” which means suppliers are on an honor system—but when health and nutrition are mixed with profit, honor, too often, goes out the window. KEY TAKEAWAYS Aloe vera, a popular home remedy, has been used medicinally for thousands of years. Findings from studies using aloe vera on animals were significantly different from studies on humans. Rats’ blood pressure drops when they are injected with aloe, but there’s no blood pressure–lowering effect in people, for example, and although drinking aloe causes colorectal tumors to form in rats, it seems to be an anti-inflammatory to human intestinal lining, though no benefit was found for irritable bowel syndrome. Aloe has been found to be beneficial in wound healing in animals, but humans’ wounds took 50 percent longer to heal when treated with aloe vera gel. Topical aloe vera gel appears to significantly speed up the healing of blistering, second-degree burns, compared to both a placebo control and silver sulphadiazine, the most commonly used topical antimicrobial agent. For milder burns, like sunburns, researchers found that aloe vera cream was not effective for the protection or treatment of sunburn, compared to placebo. Aloe vera gels and creams may not actually contain any aloe vera despite it being listed as an ingredient, and, as the industry is not monitored, the deception may continue. To read the original article click here.

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This “At Home” Remedy Knocks Out Viruses Safely and Effectively

AHA Publisher — Mon, 11 May 2020 07:00:03 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – Would you like to learn how to neutralize the threat of viruses? Well, let me ask you a question: how many of you have hydrogen peroxide in your medicine cabinet right now? This substance has been a staple at home remedy for decades for everything from whitening teeth to cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. But, wait, I’ve got some really exciting news for you. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recognizes hydrogen peroxide as an effective killer of yeast, fungi, bacteria, mold, and yes – viruses, including the rhinovirus (responsible for the common cold). And, now, there’s anecdotal evidence to suggest that hydrogen peroxide can be an effective remedy for COVID-19. Given that the media “shies away from” (censors) alternative health news, we won’t be surprised if most people don’t hear about this. But, reports of hundreds of successful cases simply seems too promising for us to ignore. Hydrogen Peroxide Is Already Well-Known as a Natural Antiviral Agent – Here’s How it Works It may help to understand how hydrogen peroxide fights viral infections by first remembering a key point about this type of infection in the first place: Viral illnesses are caused not by living organisms, but instead by pieces of genetic material that invade healthy cells – meaning the host organism’s own cells end up doing the hard work for the virus and replicate the invasive genetic material as part of the cells’ own DNA. Technically speaking: viruses can’t be “killed” simply because viruses aren’t alive in the first place. So, what needs to be destroyed in the fight against a viral illness are the cells which become infected. Household disinfectants, by the way, do not “kill” viruses either, but rather deactivates and destroys them by disrupting their protein encasing and/or its genetic sequence. Of course, it’s also worthwhile in the fight against COVID-19, or any other viral infection for that matter, to strengthen the body’s immune system so that a person is less likely to get sick in the first place! The thing is, hydrogen peroxide – which contains two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms (H2O2), one more oxygen atom than a normal molecule of water (H2O) – normally isn’t harmful to healthy cells. Why? Healthy cells have enough antioxidizing power to quash this extra oxygen atom, which by way of normal chemical reactions can become “oxidizing” (associated with cellular aging and damage) if and when an electron attaches to it. But cells infected by viruses lose this basic defensive power and therefore are liable to being destroyed by hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is super cheap and naturally occurring. In fact, your body actually makes hydrogen peroxide as part of its natural defense mechanism! In the body, dangerous oxidized oxygen atoms are converted into hydrogen peroxide by an enzyme called superoxide dismutase, and then further broken down into oxygen and water by another enzyme called catalase… Anecdotal Evidence Shows Hydrogen Peroxide Administered Via a Nebulizer Destroys COVID-19 Hydrogen peroxide therapy administered intravenously has been around for a few decades now, and used for the same means (largely, to fight viral infections). More recently, some doctors have been prescribing hydroxgen peroxide to their COVID-19 patients using an even easier delivery system: a nebulizer. A nebulizer is a medical device that converts liquid medicine into fine vapor or mist. This allows patients to inhale the substance into their lungs. It’s often used for respiratory conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Here’s what’s hopeful about COVID-19: By prescribing a solution of nebulized hydrogen peroxide (typically titrated with water or normal saline), doctors are finding that the beneficial effects of the antiviral compound are not limited to their patients’ lungs, but to their whole bodies. And this potential systemic impact has huge implications for patients fighting COVID-19, since evidence now shows that the viral disease affects multiple organs and cells in the body, including those within the heart, liver, and kidneys. Check out this video interview with David Brownstein, MD and a patient of his who was recently diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia and tested positive for COVID-19. By the way, here’s Dr. Brownstein suggestions on how to nebulize. It’s never our recommendation to start a new supplement or remedy without a doctor’s supervision. And if you already have a nebulizer at home, it is not recommended to self-administer this treatment. But, if you are interested in hydrogen peroxide as a potential antiviral treatment, we encourage you to find a licensed doctor near you who can help you get started. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here.

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