What am I? I am sometimes green, sometimes clear… sometimes a powder, sometimes a juice, sometimes a gel… sometimes in the ground and sometimes in plastic… Any quesses? I am of course… aloe vera.
I love aloe vera gel, I keep it in both my horse and human first aid kits… great on bites, itchy skin, grazes… but what about gastric ulcers? It might seem a bit of stretch that something as ‘simple’ as aloe vera gel could help horse owners to deal with gastric ulcers, yet it’s popularity has grown dramatically over the years.
So what does the science say? Well, on paper, the outlook is promising because studes in rodents have shown that aloe vera has anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, antacid and mucus stimulating properties. However, rats aren’t horses, so how does aloe vera stack up against conventional treatments for horses suffering from Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome?
So, does aloe vera gel heal ulcers in horses?
Researchers found that administration of oral aloe vera powder (reconstituted with water to a paste) led to an improvement of grade >2 ulcers in the the upper half of the horse’s stomach (squamous ulcers) in 56% of horses. However, treatment with aloe gel only led to healing in an average of 17% of horses over the 28 days of the study. Comparatively, administration of the proton pump inhibitor, omeprazole (Omoguard™ – 4mg/kg body weight) led to an improvement of grade >2 ulcers in the squamous epithelium in an average of 85% of horses, and led to healing in an average of 75% of horses over the 28 days of the study.
So, what should we take away from these results? Firstly, administration of aloe vera powder led to a reduction in the grade of the severity of the lesions (i.e. ‘improvement’) in the squamous epithelium in an average of 56% of horses, compared to 85% of horses treated with oral omeprazole. Secondly, ‘healing’, which in this study was classified as a reduction in ulceration below grade 1, was only achieved in 17% of horses treated with aloe vera powder, compared to 75% treated with oral omeprazole. The authors thus concluded that oral treatment with aloe vera was not a viable alternative treatment to omeprazole in horses.
Reflection
As a researcher myself, I am still left with a couple of questions from this study for me? The first is the type of aloe preparation used – how is it prepared, where it is grown, is dehydrated, powdered or extracted as a gel? Do these factors affect it’s efficacy and abilities? From my personal experience, I have found great differences in the oral preparations of aloe vera commercially available here in Australia in terms of efficacy, fillers etc so could those different approaches yield different results? Secondly, over 50% of horses with >2 grade ulcers showed signs of improvement within the initial 28 days… I wonder whether they would have continue to improve over time, possibly yielding higher rates of ‘healing’ in another 28 days?
What have your experiences with aloe vera been? Ready to try something different to support the digestive system of your horse? Check out our Equine Digestion Bars and Digestive Support Elixir today!
Read the original article by Bush and Colleagues published in the Equine Veterinary Journal here
Comments are closed.