Lendon H. Smith,
M.D.
From My Sad But True
file: One of the clearest signs of increased public interest in Aloe
Vera is the deluge of misleading advertising and promotion. As competing
companies vie for the rapidly expanding market, the first casualties may
well be consumers.
In the latest issue of Health Consciousness, the proponents of two
different Aloe products comment on the "whole-leaf" process.
One writer, promoting a product claiming to be "closest to whole
leaf Aloe vera," talks about the use of "controlled heat"
in production of his product. "With Aloe, controlled heat
processing, also known as the Kolbe reaction, heats the Aloe to only 180
degrees Fahrenheit (thirty-two degrees less than boiling) for about one
hour, which does not degrade the valuable healing elements in the whole
leaf, with the exception of the enzymes. This process produces a product
close to the fresh whole leaf."
This statement has gone out to health practitioners and consumers alike,
and it needs to be corrected. The "Kolbe reaction," by
definition, does not exceed 60' Centigrade, which is about 140 '
Fahrenheit. In fact, this advanced process is commonly used by the best
whole-leaf processors. (Many promoters of "cold processed"
whole-leaf Aloe simply do not tell consumers that their product has been
subjected to limited heat, adding to general public confusion.)
The limited heat of a Kolbe reaction has only minimal effects on the
polysaccharides and other active agents in Aloe, with the exception of
the enzymes. (Of course, when "active" enzymes land in your
stomach they are deactivated and broken down by stomach acid: they are
not the "healing agents" in any Aloe drink.)
But the product promoted by the Health Consciousness author has clearly
been subjected to far greater heat than that of a Kolbe reaction, and
such heat will profoundly reduce the benefits of natural Aloe. Though
the author's ad claims his product is "highest" in muco
polysaccharides, the claim is far (and I do mean far) from the truth.
According to the ad, the product is "concentrated 40 times, which
would indeed suggest a very high polysaccharide level-in fact a
concentration that would dwarf all others on the market! I can only
recommend that anyone inclined to believe this submit the product to an
independent laboratory for analysis.
A writer of a Health Consciousness article suggests that the usual
filtering of cold processed Aloe, designed to remove aloin and Aloe-emodin,
also removes other active ingredients. But the author's cited reference
is obsolete; the fact is that filtering technology now permits a high
degree of precision in targeting the constituents to be removed. The
value of properly filtered whole-leaf aloe concentrate is that it
provides a larger concentration of the desirable components of aloe, and
leaves perhaps one part per million of aloin and Aloe-emodin.
Polysaccharide levels, for example, are reduced by advanced filtering
systems less than one percent!
More Confusion
A second author, promoting a product relying on earlier hand filleting
systems (in which only the internal gel is harvested), similarly confuses
the issue of filtering, ignoring the present state of the art. He further
muddies the issues with respect to heat, ignoring the Kolbe reaction and
implying higher levels of heat than are normally used. Additionally, he
claims that the rest of the leaf contains none of the "activity
characteristic" of the Aloe internal gel. Since all of the
polysaccharides of the gel are manufactured by cellular appendages to the
rind, and since the mucilage layer between the rind and the gel discarded
in hand filleting contains the highest polysaccharide levels, the
statement is obviously incorrect. Additionally the writer's claim that the
only active ingredient in Aloe is a single, very special configuration of
polysaccharide is contradicted by the meticulous research of Dr. Ivan
Danhof, who has identified at least 18 different whole-leaf components
with demonstrable therapeutic values.
The writer then compounds the damage by suggesting that the established
laboratory process for identifying polysaccharide levels may be
unreliable. But the fact is that the process used by Dr. Danhof could be
easily summarized for a lay person and is entirely reliable.
The writer then compounds the damage by suggesting that the established
laboratory process for identifying polysaccharide levels may be
unreliable. But the fact is that the process used by Dr. Danhof could be
easily summarized for a lay person and is entirely reliable.
So let us restate the truth of the matter, there is a reason why the
leading experts on aloe have gravitated toward whole leaf processing: new
processing techniques permit us to capture higher concentrations of the
known therapeutic and immune-stimulating constituents of aloe. When all of
the promotional tactics are cleared away, the issue really is as simple as
that.
*One additional foot note: Every once in a while a company that produces
and/or distributes Aloe products may indicate they have discovered a new
form of a molecule in the Aloe. They dramatize it as something totally new
under the sun. In fact, it is nothing more than another form of the muco
polysaccharide base that has always been there as part of the
polysacchharide chemistry chain. Please be aware of these loose statements
so easily thrown around
