ALOE BARBADENSIS MILLER: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW

Abstract

At present food, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceutical industries desperately searching for new natural compounds with interesting therapeutic potentials from numerous sources. However, there are lots of plants having pharmaceutical benefits but Aloe vera is probably the most applied medicinal plant worldwide since biblical times. Aloe vera is a perennial succulent plant known as the “miracle plant” belonging to the family Liliaceae, commonly known as ghee kwar. It is the most extensively used variety in commercial products because of its therapeutic properties. Aloe vera informed to be contained as much as 75 nutrients, with 200 active components including lignin, anthraquinones, sugar, minerals, saponins, enzymes, vitamins, amino acids, and salicylic acid. Biologically active compounds extracted from aloe vera had been reported to possess several pharmacologic characteristics, specifically to promote healing of the wound, burn, and frostbite, along with antioxidant, laxative, anti-inflammatory, antifungal, antiviral, antibacterial, antitumor, hypoglycemic, gastroprotective antitumor properties. However, on the other side isolated bioactive components such as anthraquinones, phytosterols and saponins are extensively using in nutraceuticals and pharmaceutical products to cure many health ailments. Antioxidant activity is possessed by anthraquinones that are involved in free radical scavenging activity during the inflammatory response and prevent cell necrosis.