Do Essential Oils Really Do Anything?

This post is part of our Home Remedies Guide , a review of home remedies from dubious to doctor-approved. Read more here .

It’s time to bust some myths about essential oils. These are oils derived from plants that have a strong odor and are often marketed as being used for medicinal purposes. Should they really be considered home remedies ? Let’s dig.

Essential oils are not “essential”

Let’s start by looking at the meaning of the name: essential oils are oils that contain the “essence” of the plant they are derived from – usually meaning their taste or aroma. For example: do we associate this sharp minty flavor with peppermint? Open a bottle of peppermint essential oil and you can smell its strong scent.

This is not the same as when we use the word when we talk about essential amino acids or essential fatty acids, or when we say that vitamins are essential. In nutrition, “essential” refers to substances that our bodies need but cannot produce (or cannot produce in sufficient quantities), so we must get them from our diet. Methionine is an essential amino acid because if we never eat it, we will die.

So don’t confuse the two. You won’t die if you don’t get enough lavender essential oil. Even though essential oils use plants as ingredients, the essential oil itself is an industrial product. Our health does not depend on whether we have access to it.

What is actually in essential oil

Imagine that you put your nose up to a flower growing in the garden and inhale its aroma. The air you breathe in has hundreds or even thousands of different molecules floating around that interact with sensory receptors in the nasal cavity. If we taste a fragrant plant, much the same thing happens, but we would describe it as a taste, not a smell. (Many of the same receptors are involved in both processes.)

Since ancient times, people have wanted to harvest the chemicals that make up the aroma, taste, or what they believe to be the medicinal properties of a plant—bottle its essence, if you will. Some of these molecules mix easily with oil or take on the form of an oil themselves if you can collect enough of them in your little bottle.

These days, many essential oils are steam distilled, which means hot steam is mixed with a slurry of plant parts. Aromatic molecules are called volatile compounds because they fly away – primarily because they can float in the air. The mixture of steam and volatile compounds can then be cooled to obtain an oil-in-water mixture and then separated; the oil part is our essential oil.

However, other processes exist, such as extracting volatiles by soaking plant parts in oil or, in the case of some citrus fruits, by simply squeezing them out of the plant. Some essential oil sellers place a lot of importance on how their process is the best or only right, but historically the word “essential oil” has been used to describe flavored vegetable oils made in a variety of ways.

They may be natural and ancient (sort of), but that doesn’t make them harmless.

Essential oils are shrouded in mysticism: Some proponents point to the frankincense mentioned in the Bible or the resins found on Egyptian mummy wrappers as signs that wise people of the past did basically the same thing you do when you buy a package of little mummies. . bottles from DoTerra or Young Living.

It is true that aromatic oils and aromatic plant parts have been used in various cultures for a variety of purposes. Frankincense, a tree resin sometimes burned as incense , is not the same as essential oil, but essential oil can be made from it. Prior to the advent of modern pharmaceuticals, medicines were often made by cooking plants or extracting components believed to be medicinal. So, yes, vegetable oils have a history in pre-modern medicine. Of course, they weren’t necessarily used in the same way that essential oils are today, but there is some historical continuity.

It is important to remember that the ancient peoples were not the source of infallible wisdom. In Egyptian medical papyri, for example, willow bark was indicated for inflammation and castor oil as a laxative, two things that are considered effective today. (Aspirin is a chemical reformulation of the active ingredient in willow bark.) But, you know, they also recommended vaginal crocodile droppings as a method of contraception. Many ancient treatments were ineffective or harmful.

And many things in nature are also harmful. As a general rule, drugs that are effective enough to help are often also active enough in the body to cause harm. Much of the practice of medicine involves education in prescribing drugs in doses and conditions, and in the patients they help. It’s not as simple as “this oil might be good for this condition” and then getting people to take as much oil as they want, when they want, how they want. But that’s how essential oils are often described by the people who sell them.

Information about essential oils as medicinal products often comes from the people who sell them.

There are two large multi-level marketing companies, DoTerra and Young Living, that produce essential oils and have a huge number of “distributors” to market and sell them. Many of these distributors share lists of potential uses for oils and often go well beyond what is known to science (or claims allowed by agencies such as the FDA).

For example, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) sent a warning letter to Young Living stating that their distributors were making bold claims about the potential of essential oils, actually positioning them as medicines to treat certain diseases. But these oils have never been proven to be safe and effective when used as medicines. Distributors refer to the oils as “medicines” and encourage their use for conditions that are too serious for people to treat on their own. (OTC drugs are also not allowed for these conditions.) From the letter:

Based on the statements above, your Essential Oil, Vitality, Ningxia, and Nature’s Ultra CBD products are intended to prevent, treat, or treat conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis or treatment by non-practitioners, such as infections urinary tract infections, yeast infections, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer, kidney stones, drug addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, diabetes, drug withdrawal, epilepsy, glaucoma and Parkinson’s disease.

In addition to these distributor claims, you can also buy guidebooks that talk about essential oils as health products, or search Pinterest for essential oil recipes marketed as medicines and treatments, such as ” liquid Xanax ” (since renamed to “liquid sedative”). ).

Essential oils are not very effective therapeutically.

With all this history and marketing, you can expect essential oils to really be powerful medicines. But the evidence is not impressive.

One thing is for sure : essential oils have distinct scents. Many of their uses in complementary medicine (designed to be used alongside modern medicine) probably owe their effectiveness to the simple fact that people often think they smell good. For example, adding lavender oil to an ostomy bag improves “quality of life” and makes it easier to get used to life with an ostomy bag, one study found.

Research compiled by the National Cancer Institute includes several studies that show that aromatherapy may be beneficial for people undergoing cancer treatment. For example, the smell of lemon and ginger essential oils can cause salivation, which can be helpful in treating dry mouth. Women who had breast biopsies reported less anxiety when they were given lavender and sandalwood oils on a felt tab attached to their hospital gown.

But mind you, we are not talking about essential oils that help with cancer itself. Studies on the effectiveness of essential oils in physiological illnesses are often negative or inconclusive. The evidence for essential oils tends to be very subjective, such as whether you feel more relaxed after an oil massage.

Because of the strong odor, it is difficult to test with the real control group. You can compare massages with and without oils, but if someone smells a strong scent of lavender during the massage, they will know exactly which group they were in. And the placebo effect is traditionally very strong in those studies where essential oils are used. come out on top. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s better to feel better – but it’s hard to conclude that oils actually have medicinal properties since they’re widely used. It seems maybe they just smell good.

So why do essential oil aficionados often claim that oils have antibacterial, anticancer, or antifungal properties? Because these things have been demonstrated in a lab, not in human bodies. For example, some essential oils can inhibit the replication of HSV-1, the herpes virus , but can also bleach . This does not mean that you should use any of them as a cure.

Some oils may have enough evidence to be used for specific, minor conditions, but check with your doctor rather than relying on information from an essential oil seller.

Essential oils can be harmful

If you’re using essential oils for their smell or taste, you probably don’t have anything to worry about. I myself have used essential oils to make scented bath salts, which may not be exactly medicinal, but it’s certainly nice to relax in a hot lavender-scented bath when your muscles are aching.

But it is worth discussing the disadvantages of some essential oils. The poison center has a warning page for some of the oils they usually call about. Among them:

• Wintergreen oil is harmful if swallowed. (It is chemically similar to aspirin and can cause an aspirin overdose.)
• Tea tree oil can be harmful if even a small amount is swallowed; The Poison Control Center recommends against using it in the mouth, even as a mouthwash or toothache treatment.
• Eucalyptus oil causes convulsions in children if swallowed.
• Sage oil also causes convulsions in children if swallowed.
• Camphor oil has caused convulsions in children when applied topically in large amounts and/or covered with extra clothing.

If you are using essential oils, be sure to read up on the potential side effects and dangers of the specific oils you are using and be sure to get information from a trusted source (like a doctor, not a distributor) on how to use them. safely. Keep essential oils out of the reach of children.

Allergies or sensitivities to essential oils are also possible, and a reaction called contact dermatitis may result. This takes the form of a red, itchy rash. Essential oil lovers sometimes describe this as a ” detoxification ” of the skin in response to the treatment, or even say that such a reaction confirms that the treatment is working. Please, if you get a rash from applying anything to your skin, stop applying it to your skin.