Debunking the Myth: Aromatherapy is Real Medicine
Aromatherapy in the United States really suffers from an image problem, and a few degreed ‘debunkers’ are not really helping the matter. Googling ‘aromatherapy’ returns thousands of results, and in the top 15 are sites belonging to allopathic medical professionals who seem to only have given a cursory glance at the practice, and chalked it up to New Age, feel-good balderdash. Horse manure. Bull -hockey. The trouble with their analysis is that they’re based on a very limited investigation, lumping all of aroma medicine in with every claim about the ’softer science’ of psycho-emotional aromatherapy healing. The result is that many folks whom may benefit from aroma medicine may not get it, and many physicians investigating alternative medicine modalities may overlook the true potentials of essential oils. What can be done to change aromatherapy’s touchy-feely image?
How about we’ll start be agreeing on this: That SOME of aromatherapy is in-fact a ’soft science’? That SOME people may feel more relaxed when inhaling Lavender, for example, and some will not? Aromatherapists will not disagree on this point — they will however put up a defense when the medical applications of essential oils are thrown out with the soft side of ‘aroma’ therapy. Science IS BACKING UP many of aromatherapy’s claims with valid data, even on the ’soft-science’ of the practice. Here’s a look at the science behind aromatherapy, the holes in arguments of the popular debunkers, and why aroma-medicine has it’s place in today’s medical practices.
Aromatherapy’s image problem is this: Most people hear the word, and believe it has really to do with ‘the smell of things’ rather than with ‘things that smell’. Its a small but very important distinction. Aromatherapy is really the complete branch of medicine that uses the chemically-volatile (easily evaporated) constituents of plants for treatment of a wide variety of ailments. IT DOES NOT only have to do with the effects these plant chemicals have on people that smell them. Virtually every professional aromatherapist will tell you that the great medicinal promise of aromatherapy does not reside in their pleasing aromas, but rather in their abilities to successfully treat a wide range of infectious illnesses (like MRSA, the ‘Superbug’), their action as chemotherapy agents, anti-inflammatory agents, wound-healing agents, and other ‘hard’ medical applications.
A quick look at the research available on Pub Med, a database of thousands of peer-reviewed life-science and medical journals freely available on-line reveals thousands of citations of research performed using essential oils. Yes, there are in fact some studies that did not result in convincing evidence that hand massages with lavender cream didn’t make people feel better than hand massages with unscented lotion. But there is studies that show people sleep better after lavender inhalation. And there’s a study that show stress makers of the immune system remained unchanged after inhaling linalool (an isolated constituent of Lavender), but there’s also 15 studies (upon last count) showing positive significant results if one searches for ‘lavender’ and ‘axiolytic’ (the technical term for stress reducer). The results for ‘acetaminophen’ and ‘pain’ MAY be as strong; those for ‘minoxidil’ and ‘hair’ are almost certainly not.
Many practitioners of conventional medicine have decided that natural medicines in general are ineffective at best, and at worst they are considered a cruel hoax. What seems to be the challenge is the availability of well educated natural therapists — our medical system is not set up to give these practitioners the respect (and payment) they deserve. So most folks go at it themselves, valiantly attempting self-diagnosis and treatment., while FDA demands the instructions for these treatments be in the most vague form possible! The result is comments like “It (aromatherapy) is a mixture of folklore, trial and error, anecdote, testimonial, New Age spiritualism and fantasy” (Stephen Barrett, M.D. of Quackwatch). Another popular site points to a few inconclusive studies and claims all of aromatherapy to be dubious. What if we used these same guidelines investigating conventional medicine? How many deaths occur each year from properly prescribed and used drugs? From medical mistakes? The combined total makes these about the third leading cause of death in America (after heart disease and cancer, but before auto fatalities and cigarette use — See Mercola.com, ‘Death by Medicine’). Guess the number caused by mis-use (or any use for that matter) of essential oils. What’s the smallest non-negative number you can think of? That’s the currently accepted statistic.
On to the cutting edge of aroma-medicine: The big news is that essential oils, yes very the same used in aromatherapy (this IS the idea we’re trying to get across!), are highly effective antibiotics and antivirals. Again, we invite you to search for ‘essential oil’ and ‘mrsa’ — this is the staphylococcus aureus bacteria ’superbug’ that has become resistant to commonly available antibiotics (the MR in the name stands for ‘methicillin resistant’). You’ll find studies showing the efficacy of Tea Tree essential oil in clinical applications, and positive results in the lab using several other oils. And thus far it is thought that these oils have no adverse effects at effective doses.
Then there’s the myriad of studies showing essential oils’ efficacy in destroying cancers. A recent study in the journal of “Chemico-Biological Interactions” noted that linalool, a common essential oil constituent, completely eradicated a particular liver cancer cell line at very, very small concentrations. Try ‘essential oil’ and ‘cancer’ in Pub Med and you’ll get results like “Frankincense oil derived from Boswellia carteri induces tumor cell specific cytotoxicity”(perhaps this is terminology of “New Age spiritualism” I’m yet unaware of). Another result is “Anticancer activity of an essential oil from Cymbopogon flexuosus” (Lemongrass essential oil) with a conclusion of “Our results indicate that the oil has a promising anticancer activity and causes loss in tumor cell viability by activating the apoptotic process as identified by electron microscopy.” The list, of course, goes on (there are in fact 388 results today for this search).
While its easy to snub aromatherapy as New-Agey and soft, it’s so much more helpful to really know the score. We’re talking about medicines with huge curative potentials, and limited side effects. And they smell good — how many medicines have THAT going for them? Now it the time to change the miss-perception of natural medicine in general, and the therapeutic use of essential oils in particular. Educate yourself on the valuable research being performed. Use the term ‘aroma-medicine’ instead. Clarify that aromatherapy is really the therapeutic use of medicinal plant extracts, and while some folks appreciate the smell, that’s just the surface of the entire branch of this healing modality. A little noise from us can change the way the graciously uninformed think about the healing potential of these wonderful oils.
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