Aloe Vera for Healthy Sex

Aloe Vera is a succulent plant of the lily family native to the Cape of Good Hope and growing wild in much of Africa and Madagascar. It produces a ring of dagger shaped fleshy leaves that grow up from the base of the plant. Each leaf can grow up to nearly 2kg in weight. It is from the leaf that the soothing Aloe Vera juice is extracted. The Aloe Vera plant is drought resistant and grows mainly in subtropical desert-like savannas. Aloe Vera can grow to 20 meters in height but usually grows only to about 1.5 meters. Each plant has about 15 leaves and blooms intermittently. It produces erect spikes of drooping yellow, orange or red tubular flowers on a woody stem.

Dr. Morton Walker and Joan Walker, authors of the book Sexual Nutrition, suggest Aloe Vera as an "excellent aphrodisiac drink." Dr. Robert Picker of the Berkeley Holistic Clinic in Berkeley, California claims to have used it with over three hundred people, with phenomenal results.

Medicinal Use of Aloe Vera

In addition to its aphrodisiac properties, Aloe Vera is considered to have many other health benefits. Whole leaf aloe contains components that possess significant immune enhancing and antiviral properties. Doctors are using it as part of the treatment to fight AIDS, arthritis, Epstein-Barr, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, because it stimulates antibodies and T-cells, thus it hastens the regenerative phase of healing.

Russian research has shown benefits to conditions other than those for which Aloe Vera is most well known. These include improvements in bone tuberculosis and broken bones, inflammatory gynecological conditions, paralysis caused by polio; ear, nose and throat conditions, and bronchial asthma. They have also found that Aloe Vera can help slow the aging process. Both Russia and the United States have carried out extensive research into the use of Aloe Vera for all types of burns. They found that compounds within Aloe Vera can help the burn heal, and can also have a cleansing and antibacterial effect.

Research has also been carried out into whether Aloe Vera can play a role in the treatment of cancer. Aloe Vera appears to cause the release of tumor necrosis factor Alpha that blocks the blood supply to cancerous growths.

A study in Japan showed that drinking Aloe Vera juice regularly may be effective in preventing the onset of lung cancer in smokers.

Aloe Vera has been used medicinally for 5,000 years. It has been called the "miracle plant", the "medicine plant" and the "wand of heaven". Aloe Vera is a natural detoxifier, it boosts the immune system, increases beneficial intestinal flora, soothes and repairs damaged and inflamed tissue both internally and externally. It has often been seen as a "cure-all" because it has so many uses.

The first recorded evidence of the healing properties of Aloe Vera is found on ancient Egyptian texts dating from around 1500 BC. The Egyptians referred to Aloe Vera as the “Plant of Immortality".

Aristotle was reputed to have persuaded his student Alexander the Great to seize the island if Socorra for the Aloe Vera that grew there. The Aloe could survive unplanted for many years so could be carried as an emergency treatment for wounds suffered by Alexander's troops.

In the first century AD the Greek physician Dioscorides wrote in his Materia Medica that Aloe Vera extract could be used to treat wounds, stomach complaints, constipation, hemorrhoids, headaches, all mouth problems, hair loss, insect bites, kidney ailments and skin irritations.

In Africa Aloe Vera was used for stomach aches and to prevent infection from insect bites.

The Chinese used Aloe Vera for treating eczema during the Sung dynasty.

In India during the fourth century Aloe Vera is called "the silent healer" and used it to heal skin conditions and inflammation.

In the early Christian era Aloe Vera could be found in all advanced medical texts.

Eventually Aloe Vera was introduced into the Americas. In Mexico the juice was used to treat skin complaints and wounds. In Central and South America people used the juice as an insect repellant. Aloe Vera was sold in the street markets of Latin America as an aphrodisiac.

Jesuit priests were encouraged to take Aloe Vera with them when going to the New World to spread the bible. Settlers in North America were using Aloe Vera to heal wounds and burns. The indigenous Seminole people believed that the plant had powerful rejuvenating properties and that a "Fountain of Youth" sprang from a pool within a cluster of Aloes. As the popularity of Aloe Vera increased during the 18th century so trade wars occurred between the British, Spanish and Dutch to establish Aloe plantations in the New World.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries many wealthy collectors of exotic plants added Aloe Vera to their collections and many discoveries about its properties were made during this period. At one time Chatsworth House in Derbyshire housed the finest collection of Aloes in England.