Background & Health Benefits

History and Background
Over the past 15-20 years, consumers have come to realise that aloe is not only good for the skin, but it has similar beneficial properties when taken internally. Drinking aloe is now recognised for relieving many different ailments, essentially of the digestive tract. These include:

• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Colitis
• Crohn’s Disease
• Diverticulitis
• Indigestion
• Heartburn
• Reflux
• Stomach ulcers

Conventional medicines have a very targeted approach to combating illness and diseases in the body. Most of the time these medicines aim to block certain processes and in doing so, it is often to the detriment of other vital functions required for good health. In contrast, natural products like aloe, are geared to aid in improving function in the body. They do not target specific illnesses, but rather are an enabler in the body to improve function and boost the body’s own abilities to overcome these diseases.

In this regard, aloe is recognised as an excellent immune system builder, and many successful trials have been conducted in a number of countries, indicating aloe’s efficacy against viruses as well as various cancers.

By drinking a small glass of Aloe 24/7 juice once or twice a day, the natural sugars in the aloe help to ensure efficient cell-to-cell communication in the body, a function which is vital to good health and well-being.

Aloe 24/7 is a great, every-day dietary supplement which assists in building the immune system and in improving general body function.

Over time, many plants have been hailed as “miracle plants” and “natural wonder cures” for a myriad of ailments, but none have held their ground and enjoyed a resurgence that has become almost legendary, like aloe. There is now a strongly perceived therapeutic value that is attached to aloe, and it’s clearly a trend that is going to continue for the foreseeable future.

For centuries, people from all over the world have recognized the beneficial healing properties of the aloe plant when applied to the skin, but only in more recent years have the benefits of drinking aloe juice become more well-known.

There are literally dozens of books by medical professionals from many different countries, all confirming what the indigenous people of South Africa and other lands far and wide, have discovered – that “aloe” can indeed heal, and (they even go so far as to say) cure, a wide range of diseases.

In “Aloe Vera – the New Millenium”, research by Prof B H McAnalley, into the treatment of diseases such as HIV/Aids, diabetes and various cancers with aloe, show undeniable and positive results.

Although the majority of scientific research has been conducted on Aloe Vera in the USA, and to a lesser extent in Japan and parts of Europe, the modern-day US scientists recognise and acknowledge the profound curative abilities, and broad successful usage, of Aloe Ferox, as well.

This research, both in South Africa and abroad, would now appear to have found that the key components in aloe which carry the healing and curative properties are the aloe polysaccharides. Aloe Ferox is made up of a long list of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, anthraquinones, lignin, etc but the plant’s abundance of polysaccharides (long-chain sugars), working together in a synergistic manner with all the other elements, are deemed to be the key active ingredient.

Until recently, it was generally thought that all Aloes were “Aloe Vera”, whilst in fact there are over 400 different Aloe species world-wide, of which the Aloe Vera is one and the Aloe Ferox – indigenous and endemic to South Africa – is another.

Although the proponents of Aloe Ferox tend to focus on the differences between Aloe Ferox and Aloe Vera, there are sufficient fundamental, biological similarities between the two species to give credence to theories that what the one species is capable of, can be expected in the other. Both are succulent plants, with leaves that hold beneficial properties, of a similar nature, for example:

Carbohydrates – made up of mostly long-chain sugars (polysaccharides)
Amino acids – the building blocks of proteins
Minerals – minerals are important trace elements in all biology, helping to regulate, among other functions, fluid transfer and balance between living cells
Enzymes – essential to the well-being of the plant as well as to human skin
Lipids – oils are very valuable in skincare
Acids – vital for maintenance of balance, particularly in skincare products

Whilst the majority of formal research has been carried out on the Vera, there is an abundance of anecdotal and, to a much lesser extent, scientific evidence that the Aloe Ferox is more than equal to the Vera in its capabilities with regard to healing and nutrition.

Aloe Ferox is more than equal to Vera in its capabilities with regard to healing and nutrition.

The aloe used in Aloe 24/7 comes from farmland in the western and southern Cape, where the Aloe Ferox plants occur naturally and are certified wild grown organic. This means that no pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers are used which could impact on the quality of the final product.

The harvesting is done by members of local communities, many of whom were unemployed prior to the emergence of the SA Aloe Industry. Now, the improved lifestyle of entire villages can be attributed to the rapidly growing aloe industry in the country.

The crop is completely sustainable as only the lower leaves of adult plants are harvested annually, thereby allowing the plants to flower and form seeds, ensuring that new plants can usually be seen growing next to mature adult plants.