X-Message-Number: 24445
From: "Basie" <>
Subject: The aloe vera plant 
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 14:44:49 -0400

Interesting enough is that this plant also has freez resistant qualities.

Basie

>Aloe May Save Lives on Battlefield, Study Finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The aloe vera plant could provide a fluid to help
keep alive trauma victims such as battlefield casualties until they can get
a blood transfusion, U.S. researchers said on Monday.


Tests on rats show that the sticky fluid found inside the leaves of aloe
vera can help preserve organ function after massive blood loss, the team at
the University of Pittsburgh said.


Writing in the journal Shock, they said just small injections of the
substance helped counteract the more immediate deadly effects of blood loss.


"We hope this fluid will offer a viable solution to a significant problem,
both on and off the battlefield," Dr. Mitchell Fink, a professor of critical
care medicine who led the study, said in a statement.


"Soldiers wounded in combat often lose significant amounts of blood, and
there is no practical way to replace the necessary amount of blood fast
enough on the front lines. When this happens, there is inadequate perfusion
of the organs which quickly leads to a cascade of life-threatening events,"
Fink added.


"Medics would need only to carry a small amount of this solution, which
could feasibly be administered before the soldier is evacuated to a medical
unit or facility," he added.


The researchers, who got funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, tested the mucilage from inside aloe leaves. It is rich in sugar
compounds called polysaccharides that affect the qualities of fluid.


"It may provide better diffusion of oxygen molecules from red blood cells to
tissues because of its ability to better mix in the plasma surrounding red
blood cells," said Marina Kameneva, an artificial blood expert who worked on
the study.


They tested rats, injecting them either with the aloe derivative or salt
solution after draining them of some blood.


Just half the 10 rats injected with saline survived, while eight of 10 rats
that got aloe did.


In a second experiment involving more blood loss, five of 15 rats survived
for two hours after getting aloe compared to one of 14 treated with saline
solution alone. Seven animals receiving no treatment all died within 35
minutes.


Trauma is the leading cause of death for people under the age of 40 in the
United States, killing 150,000 people a year. Loss of blood accounts for
nearly almost half these deaths. <

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