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suggested edit: change negative scientific tone of summary[edit]
Hi all not a normal wiki contributor but a science minded person, please mind non-formatting. I just came from the page on Mucilage which is the bulk of the extracellular matrix for plants and many other lifeforms, quoting briefly from there: "Mucilage is edible. It is used in medicine as it relieves irritation of mucous membranes by forming a protective film. " I then clicked here because it's the first link on the section there about plants high in mucilage concentration, so the negative tone here on backing surprised me. The current summary seems to indicate there is absolutely no rational reason people should use these aloe derivatives, which is simply not true. There's also a reason it's traditionally used as a _skin_ salve, it's good at putting a barrier between your vulnerable non-skin cells and the infectious world -- this extends beyond preventing infections to providing environmental cues for your body to scab/scar or not. I don't know how to write this concisely and cited for an actual edit, but I implore someone to write an edit that's more neutral or acknowledging. I am inclined to think that the cited contrary evidence is making a comparison between aloe and a competitive compound, not nothing. 04:11, 13 November 2018 (UTC)w — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:646:101:7FB7:B05E:8853:F769:FEAF (talk)
Semi-protected edit request on 13 October 2018[edit]
Consider the first. It's actually a compendium of separate reviews, if you read it. Each table is based on a relatively small number of reviews. Table 1, for example, showing the effects of AV in the treatment of burns, is actually based on 5 studies. They say "the present study was not a meta-analysis and had no major summary" and there was no check for publication bias. The latter is a serious problem, since it's well known that positive results are more regularly published. The second is fine as a report on ethnobotany, and I would certainly use it for that, but not for any medical claims. The third is an in vitro study; see WP:MEDRS and the section on in vitro studies. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:50, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Deleted ethnobotany study which, fair enough, shouldn't have been included initially. Reason for not including the review, come on, lack of check for publication bias? [[WP::MEDRS]] doesn't say in-vitro studies are unacceptable, it says to avoid unnecessarily extrapolating conclusions about human health effects from it -anyone who actually knows some basic cellular biology should understand that benefits to wound healing by factors such as antiseptic/hydration/barrier etc. mechanisms are basically universal as far as all mammals and avians go). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:CAC3:2400:D66D:6DFF:FE1E:5C03 (talk) 23:21, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Concerning this series of edits, we should apply WP:MEDASSESS for the quality of evidence: 1) the journal for PMID 30666070 is a low-quality publication not indexed in Medline, and having an impact factor less than 1, making it unreliable and unusable; 2) although stated as a review, PMID 30153721 included only 3 small prospective trials with limited subject numbers; it is a low-quality report with limited interpretation about efficacy of aloe vera in reducing symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, a condition for which there are no high-quality reviews concerning aloe vera; 3) PMID 26090436 is based mostly on animal studies published more than 1-3 decades ago. It is an out of date, low-quality, unusable source; 4) PMID 31379961 is published in an alternative medicine journal of the Hindawi company, and is "predatory" according to WP:CITEWATCH, so is unreliable and unusable. WP:BRD: reverting to the previous version while SharabSalam and the IP review this discussion and gain consensus to add limited additional content, if any; see WP:CON. --Zefr (talk) 01:22, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
This is pretty ridiculous, my intention was to give literally just some reference to the dozens of studies that support the thoroughly well-established use of this plant for minor skin injuries like abrasions, burns, sunburns, etc.. If we cherry-pick a reason not to include 90% of the research out there, is that justification to state outright that the research doesn't exist, that there's "no evidence" to support a conclusion? This seems horrendously biased.
And most of these justifications seem like "weasel word" kind of issues. "Low quality" by whose standards, yours? In-vitro studies relating to biological mechanisms possessed by most "higher" animal species"? Retracted condemnations of a conglomerate in control of dozens of journals? Can you actually show that this study is "predatory"? This just seems like a convoluted form of an ad hominem fallacy. I already retracted PMID 31379961 anyway for non-applicability, regardless.
Medical editors have to apply a standard for judging quality of evidence. That's what WP:MEDASSESS serves - it's worth a read and study of the sources shown in the pyramids. A high-quality source would be a Cochrane review of completed large-scale trials on aloe vera which - for skin wounds - is PMID 22336851, as used in the article. Wikipedia isn't a textbook for all studies to be cited on a topic; WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. High-quality trials on aloe vera are mostly absent because there is no sponsor to protect intellectual property or to pay for years of clinical research. The article states "There is no good evidence aloe vera is of use in treating wounds or burns" which is sourced to the conclusion of the Cochrane review. --Zefr (talk) 03:20, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
Just to clarify my position: it can certainly be stated, with reliable sources for the claim, that AV is widely used for minor skin injuries like abrasions, burns, sunburns, etc. What can't be stated here, at present, is that it's efficacious when used, because there isn't an acceptable source to support this claim. I don't want to get into yet another long discussion, but please take seriously what Zefr wrote above. In particular:
Stating that there's no evidence to support a conclusion is not biassed, and does not mean that the conclusion is false. "Absence of evidence ≠ evidence of absence" is a well known observation.
In vitro studies regularly show effects that don't replicate to whole organisms, regardless of whether they relate to biological mechanisms possessed by most animal species. See Oxygen radical absorbance capacity, for example: in vitro anti-oxidation effects, which have impeccable biochemistry behind them, turned out to have no relevance in vivo.
The core issue is that the "no good evidence" phrasing is completely dismissive in spite of a huge body of evidence that supports every facet of the claim, that simply doesn't live up to every random Wikipedia rule that's applied to it. The article should at a minimum acknowledge the existence of this volume of studies on the topic. Just blithely calling them "bad" because you don't like the publication, or that the study is in-vitro (which doesn't disprove the study), or that the review is too small, etc., completely fails to properly inform the reader about the state of research on the topic. Shouldn't it say, "hey, in-vitro studies exist, reviews from publications on CITEWATCH, reviews that are too small for Wikipedia or don't include a check on publication bias, which do purport to validate these uses for AV exist, but no super-high-quality-bona-fide research exists according to Wikipedia's standards". Some mention of the actual state of research in the "Research" section of the article, instead of, "no good evidence exists" and then silence about everything else that does exist, which, hey, has actual relevance to someone interested in the subject and prepared to spend more than five seconds researching the topic. 24.94.72.77 (talk) 07:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
If you don't agree with the standards applied to the reporting of medically relevant research in Wikipedia, then take it up at WT:MEDRS. All that is relevant here is whether WP:MEDRS and related guidance has been correctly applied. In my view it has, and I don't see where you have convincingly argued otherwise. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:53, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
Well, it obviously depends on the size of the plant. There's no reason to suppose an Aloe vera plant would differ from other succulents of the same mass. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:07, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
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