"Aloe Vera for Psoriasis"
Psoriasis is a chronic, inflammatory skin disease that affects about 1 in 40 people,
making it one of the most frequent chronic skin diseases worldwide.
There's lots of drugs for it, some of which cost
more than $100,000 a year to get a response.
There are cheaper drugs like cyclosporine, but it carries
the long-term risk of kidney damage, hypertension, and malignancies.
The drug can cause cancer, kidney toxicity in more than 50%
of the patients treated long-term, and in terms of malignancies,
up to 42 times the rate of cancer.
And it doesn't even work that well, keeping the disease at bay
in a little more than half of patients over a 4-month period.
There's got to be a better way.
What about plants: "Topical Botanical Agents for the Treatment of Psoriasis.?
Well, aloe vera gel is said to possess anti-inflammatory, anti-itching,
and wound-healing properties.
Yeah, but as I described before, when it was put to the test
for wound-healing it actually made things worse.
The exploitation of aloe preparations has been accompanied too often
by misinformation and exaggerated claims, but there is some impressive evidence.
For example, to test its anti-inflammatory properties it was tested
head-to-head against steroids for mustard gas exposure.
Mustard gas is probably the most popular chemical warfare agent,
starting in World War I.
The last widespread military use was in the '80s during the Iraq-Iran war,
with more than 100,000 exposed and many still suffering from
the long-term complications, predominantly itching.
Even decades after surviving a gas attack, 70% to 90% are still suffering.
Topical steroids are the most frequently administered medications, and they help,
but long-term use is not recommended and is associated with a variety of side effects.
Therefore, how about safer agents like aloe vera?
Sixty-seven chemical warfare-injured vets were randomized
to apply aloe vera/olive oil cream or the steroids,
and the aloe vera mixture appeared to work as well as the drug.
OK, well then let's give it a try for the management of psoriasis.
By the end of the month-long study, the aloe vera cream had cured
83% of the patients, compared to the placebo cure rate of less than 10%,
resulting in significant clearance of the psoriatic plaque skin lesions.
All right, but that's compared to an inactive placebo.
How about compared to steroids?
Aloe was found to be more effective in reducing the clinical symptoms.
Like taking this nasty belly button and clearing the itchy, scaly rash away.
Here's another beautiful sequence of before-and-after pictures,
but in this case, this may have very well been the placebo treatment.
In this double-blind, placebo-controlled study of a commercial aloe vera gel
in the treatment of slight to moderate psoriasis, things got better in 70%
of the aloe treated sites, but 80% of the placebo-treated areas improved.
The placebo beat out the aloe. The high response rate
of the placebo gel indicated a possible effect in its own right.
The placebo was just basically xanthan gum and water,
and they were like, hey, instead of aloe failing, maybe xanthan gum just works too?
All in all, the results on the effectiveness of aloe vera
for psoriasis are contradictory, but applying it on the skin appears safe,
so I figure why not give it a try?