Which Essential Oils Actually Work?

Essential oils have kind of a bad reputation. Like a modern day snake oil, they’re touted as cures for all sorts of ailments, from reducing inflammation to treating headaches. Many of these claims are fairly harmless.

But some are big, dangerous,  and straight up wrong. Like a few years ago when  some companies went so far as to claim their essential oils  were able to prevent Ebola… Yikes. So it’s reasonable to be  skeptical of these products.

But while it’s true that  some essential oil treatments are as bogus as healing crystals, others really do have uses that are backed up by research. So draw yourself a warm bath with  your favorite scent and relax. We’ll clear the air about which  essential oils actually work.

[♪ INTRO] Let’s start with what essential oils are: the concentrated extracts  from various parts of plants, including the roots, bark, fruits, and leaves. The compounds in these oils are volatile, which means they evaporate quickly. That’s what makes them smell so nice.

The uncertainty around  whether or not essential oils actually do anything comes in part from the fact that they can be tricky to study. Since essential oils are  distillations from plants, the formulation can differ from batch to batch, depending on the plants used and how it’s made. That makes it really hard to  compare results across studies.

And even if scientists were able to grow a bunch of identical plants  and produce identical oils, there would still be research hurdles to overcome. The gold standard of research  is to use a double-blind, placebo controlled study, where  neither the scientists nor the participants know who has the  treatment and who has the placebo. However, since part of the whole  schtick of essential oils is that they smell nice, that makes  a blinded trial a bit…complicated.

But fear not! People are,  despite these difficulties, doing more research into essential  oils because they do have some really promising uses. Like making  your irritable bowels less irritable.

For folks who suffer from IBS, you know that this condition can be…. well, crappy. And one of the most frustrating  aspects is that there isn’t a cure.

So it would be really cool if  something easy and affordable, like peppermint oil, helped relieve your symptoms. No, sniffing a diffuser  won’t make your IBS go away. But if you take a peppermint oil pill  that is coated to prevent breakdown until it reaches the small intestine  where it can work its magic, there’s some evidence to suggest that it  could reduce your IBS symptoms.

But it's not really magic. It seems to work through the  menthol in peppermint oil, which blocks calcium channels  and can help relax smooth muscle, like the muscles that we have in our GI tract. And more relaxed muscles in the GI tract can help… ”things” go more smoothly.

Peppermint oil is also antimicrobial, which can help eliminate  undesirable bacteria in the gut. And things that are good for the  gut are often good for the butt. Researchers generally agree that this stuff works.

A meta-analysis, concluded that peppermint oil is both safe and effective for managing IBS. So when used as directed,  peppermint oil pills have some solid research supporting their use in managing IBS. But the evidence for our next  essential oil is a little shakier.

I have to admit: It sounds nice  to get a bergamot oil massage instead of popping an Advil  whenever my back hurts. And bergamot oil is often marketed  for pain of various kinds. But whether or not it works is still unclear.

Studies of mice have shown that  bergamot oil does have active compounds in it that seem to  reduce a few types of pain. Basically, those compounds might  target the same opioid pathway in the brain that effective  pharmaceutical painkillers use. If you do a search through the literature, you can find a lot of peer-reviewed  publications that discuss the effects of bergamot oil used  in aromatherapy to treat pain… In rodents, to be clear.

There just isn’t much evidence  that it works for people. The few studies we have with  human participants don’t make a particularly good case for  bergamot oil as a pain reliever. In one human study, scientists tested whether bergamot oil could reduce perceived pain in people having a procedure called a CT colonography.

This procedure is also  called a virtual colonoscopy, where instead of having a camera  placed where the sun doesn’t shine, doctors use a CT scan to  generate images of your colon. Of the patients in the study,  some received aromatherapy with bergamot oil, some listened  to relaxing music, some patients got music and aromatherapy,  and some received neither. And drumroll please… the researchers did not observe any differences among the groups in terms of  their perceptions of pain.

But! It’s important to note that a  CT colonography shouldn’t be painful. So without more research,  there’s no way to know if an effect would be seen in  a more agonizing procedure.

It may be promising, but there just  isn’t the research in humans yet to really support the idea that  bergamot oil is a good pain reliever. But if the pain is from a zit  emerging from the depths of your skin, maybe try this next essential oil instead. Thanks to Brilliant for  supporting this SciShow video!

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There’s a long history of  Bundjalung Aboriginal Australians using the tea tree plant to  treat a variety of conditions, including colds, sore throats,  wounds, and other skin issues. So maybe it’s no surprise  that there’s pretty robust peer-reviewed literature to  support its use for acne. When applied to the skin in appropriate concentrations in a lotion,  tea tree oil seems to work.

The long and short of it is that  it’s antibacterial and antifungal, as tested across a wide  variety of bacteria and fungi, including strains that can contribute to acne. The active components of tea  tree oil can interfere with the cell membranes of bacteria,  causing them to become leaky. As you might imagine, when the  insides of the bacteria leak to the outside, that’s not good for  them.

And voila, the bacteria die. When a study published in the  Medical Journal of Australia matched tea tree oil up head to head  with the well established acne fighting ingredient, benzoyl peroxide,  the essential oil held its own. It didn’t work quite as well  as the benzoyl peroxide, but tea tree oil led to a  significant reduction in acne.

And we often overlook this part, but the patients using tea tree oil reported significantly  fewer negative side effects, like skin dryness, itchiness, and redness. So the verdict on tea tree oil is that  it is very likely to be beneficial for treating acne, and perhaps  gentler than some existing products. And while being gentle is great, we still want products we use  to work how we intend them to.

Which may not be the case  for this next essential oil. Rosemary oil is alleged to help  improve memory, simply by smelling it. I say “alleged” because scientists don’t have any idea how it would do that.

In one study, researchers speculated that the antioxidant properties protect neurons. But they literally said “we  assume” this is how it works. Which is a bit dubious.

There have been some experiments to test this, including one where a group of researchers worked with patients undergoing hemodialysis who needed to be diligent about  remembering to take medication. They tested if essential oils  could improve patient memory, and therefore increase the likelihood  that they took their medicine. And the results were: it didn’t make a difference.

As much as I would love to make my house smell like rosemary and improve  my memory in the process, sadly, it doesn’t seem all that likely to work. But if you are looking for an  essential oil where all you need to do to reap the benefits is smell it,  you’ll be excited for our final oil. Lavender oil has been marketed  as a sleep aid for decades.

And there are multiple active components in the pleasant smelling  fragrance that chill you out. Some act on the GABAergic system, which slows down signals in the nervous system, the cholinergic system, which plays a key role in many of the body’s automatic functions, and the histaminergic system, which is involved in regulating circadian rhythms. All of that comes together to yield real results.

Across several studies, lavender  does seem to improve sleep. In one of them, participants  with insomnia either used lavender essential oils or a  sweet almond oil, which served as a fragrant control not expected  to have an impact on sleep. Each participant recorded their  sleep scores for one week at the start as a baseline, then  used each scent for one week in a randomly assigned order, with a  one week break in between scents.

After all of that, they filled  out a sleep quality questionnaire. And it turned out that lavender improved the sleep quality of the participants. Since the study was small, these  results can’t be written in stone.

But this type of study has been  repeated by other researchers. A similar study was conducted with a group well known for terrible  sleep habits: college students. Yep I’m talking to you, get some sleep!

And again, researchers found  that using lavender aromatherapy at night improved their sleep  quality using the same questionnaire. Across many studies, lavender seems pretty promising for improving sleep. It’s very low effort, and is  likely to provide benefits.

I like that combination. So yes, there are some proposed uses for essential oils that are totally ridiculous. I’m looking at you Ebola claims… watch it!

And if you’re trying to treat a health problem, you should definitely get a  medical professional’s guidance. But there are a few essential oil  treatments that seem pretty legit. And if you want to go ahead and  introduce some of these oils into your routines, they  probably won't cause any harm.

Whether or not it does anything,  it just sounds so luxurious to treat yourself like one  of those rodents sitting by a bergamot oil diffuser  and give yourself a spa day. Maybe throw in a tea tree  face mask while you’re at it. For data collection, of course.

Maybe you could also light  your Anubis scented candle. Available over at Complexly. Store, Made by SciShow, it’s got  zero medical claims attached.