Abstract
Background
Aloe vera (Aloe barbadensis Miller), commonly known as Ghritkumari/Gwarpatha, is a member of the Liliaceae family, used in the traditional medicine system for ages. Aloe vera has made its importance as a therapeutic agent, acting as a cure for various diseases such as skin problems, lungs, and heart disorders, diabetes, ulcers, various microbial infections, and asthma. Despite its tremendous health benefits, the dark side of the plant is a reason of concern as there are several active compounds present in the plant, raising questions on its safe oral consumption and application.
Methods and Results
The literature review was compiled from information resourced from various national and international journals available at Google Scholar and curated with Mendeley. The data mining was carried out during the period of January to May 2021. This study explored and summarized the dark side of Aloe vera, subjected to various secondary metabolites present in it. Aloin, the most active compound of Aloe vera, is a type of anthraquinone metabolized by human gut microflora, resulting in the formation of aloe-emodin anthraquinone, later being associated with several harmful effects such as carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, and purgative. Besides this, several alkaloids and polysaccharides present in the plant are reported to cause hepatotoxicity and male infertility, respectively.
Conclusions
The harmful effects of the plants are not adequately discovered yet; hence there is a need to come up with some mechanism to understand and suppress the formation of such toxic compounds completely. This review examined the botany, active compounds, and adverse clinical effects in the range of metabolites associated with this herb – “Aloe vera”.
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Acknowledgements
We want to thank Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, Haryana, for providing a suitable environment for manuscript writing. As a first author, I would like to thank all the co-authors for their assistance throughout all aspects of this study and their help in manuscript writing. I am grateful to Dr. Vinod Chhokar for technical editing, language editing, and proofreading.
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The authors are thankful to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), University Grant Commission (UGC), Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India, for the financial support in terms of fellowship in manuscript writing, data interpretation, and analysis respectively.
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AJ conceptualized the article and prepared the original draft. GS contributed to writing, reviewing, and editing the manuscript. SS contributed to data interpretation and curation. VC contributed to proofreading and design of work. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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Jangra, A., Sharma, G., Sihag, S. et al. The dark side of miracle plant-Aloe vera: a review. Mol Biol Rep 49, 5029–5040 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-022-07176-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-022-07176-9