Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics • Hacker News Board

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#21

Post by lobf » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #18

thanatosmin wrote: post #8

It's telling that only one of these studies is published in a journal where I can find the full text (with MIT journal access). Sadly, it's only really possible to judge the research in that article, which is questionable. They test the susceptibility of e. coli strains to various oils, at 8-12 uL/mL. I think the only observation one needs point out is that concentration in a person's blood would kill them too. I wis…

This kind of reminds me of all the "X cures cancer" media reports. It's not that hard to kill cancer cells in a petri dish (or in a xenograph model). Tens of thousands of compounds have killed cancer cells in models, but failed entirely in humans.

Yeah, a bullet kills cancer pretty well. The trick is targeting just the cancerous cells.

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#22

Post by LogicFailsMe » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 2:42 AM UTC

I used to have an incurable sinus infection that plagued me every winter. Antibiotics were worthless. Then, after X-rays confirmed my maxillary sinuses were filled to the brim with crud and doctors wanted to cut out large swaths of my sinuses, I decided to hang upside down on my personal quack theory that it might let them drain.

To my somewhat surprise, every day I did this an unholy brew of dark brown mucus and blood would drain out of my nose after a few minutes. A couple weeks later the crud dissipated and so did the sinus infection. I haven't had a serious infection of more than a few days since 2011.

What's my point? Keep an open mind here. Traditional medicine wasn't the answer here. Homeopathy is nonsense, but there are occasional bits of truth to mine from alternative approaches.

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#23

Post by halfcat » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 2:45 AM UTC

My wife and her friends are into essential oils. I have mixed feelings. Some of the oils do seem to be effective, but there are definite red flags as far as the business behind the oils.

On the shady side, they have the ZYTO hand scanner, a device you place your hand on for a few minutes, and then it tells you all of your deficiencies, and all of the oils you need to buy to fix those deficiencies. My wife and all of her friends swear by this scan, amazed at its accuracy. My scan was not accurate at all. Before the scan, you have to enter your info (name, address, email, etc), so I have always suspected they are using some online marketing database to profile you. If you read about the scanner online, they claim that the reason the scanner doesn't give reproducible results is because it "uses quantum physics", which just screams scam to me.

As far as the oils product itself, I have used several on various skin ailments such as skin tags and warts, and I have been quite impressed at how effective they have been in consistently getting rid of them.

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#24

Post by hedning » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 3:02 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #20

SeanDav wrote: post #6

It would help hugely if we all become Vegans or at least vastly reduced our meat/fish consumption. Producing meat and animal products is very inefficient in terms of land and resources and encourages the use of antibiotics. Of course this is a pipe dream and barring a world extinction threat, is never going to happen.

It's far more complex than this. A lot of meat --free-range cattle and sheep particularly--is raised on land which is not arable for traditional crops. Farmed fish too, when farmed responsibly, can provide a lot of food on "land" which could not have produced other food.

But we aren't lacking land to grow food. We have so much of it actually that we use a third of the arable land world wide to grow feed for livestock, (which accounts for 40% all grains grown)[1]. If we just ate this grain instead we could feed 3.5 billions people extra[2].

Cattle (and sheep) are extremely inefficient. We use 60% of all farmland to produce beef, but it only provides us with 2% of all calories (5% of protein)[1]. So, the majority of all pastureland plus a big chunk of the arable land is used to produce 2% of all calories. That's not really much of a resource.

So yes, if we raised cattle purely on pasture (which we don't overall) we could actually get some net production of food. But it would still be an insignificant part of our diet.

[1] Grade A Choice? Solutions for Deforestation-free Meat. Union of Concerned Scientists, 2012: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/Soluti...

[2] Meat and Animal Feed: http://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat-and-anim...

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#25

Post by Trisell » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 3:07 AM UTC

My wife is big into essential oils. She initially bought into the hype. Interestingly the company she started to buy from, has soured her due to their business practices. Among other things selling "pure" oils, that really are not as pure as the claim.

I will say this when she first started with them, I thought it was all voodoo and witchcraft, but after using various oils, I find that certain ones do give relief of certain symptoms. Like we have a blend that "aides" digestion. And when I have heartburn, I rub it on my stomach and within 15 minutes feel better. Is it magic, I have no idea, but it seems to work.

But I also still believe in traditional medicine. If I have an ear infection I'm not going to pour oil in my ear, I'm going to go see a Dr and get a prescription to fix it. I think that there is a group of people out there who are so turned off by the western medical system, that they are looking for anything that they can hook on too, to hopefully provide them with a means to not have to participate in the system.

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#26

Post by benten10 » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 3:17 AM UTC

Just so no one is confused (like I was for a long time), essential oils are so called because they are obtained using plant essences, not because they are essential to us in any way (though they may now be!)

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#27

Post by andrewflnr » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 3:40 AM UTC

My gripe is that "essential oil" is only slightly more specific than "chemical", so it's meaningless to talk about essential oils in general as a fix for anything. You need to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis for every use. An arbitrary essential oil is as likely to be a poison as a cure, but they're all lumped together in the hype. And it's not like we didn't already know that plants are a good source of medicines. /rant

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#28

Post by pushrax » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 3:45 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #27

My gripe is that "essential oil" is only slightly more specific than "chemical", so it's meaningless to talk about essential oils in general as a fix for anything. You need to evaluate them on a case-by-case basis for every use. An arbitrary essential oil is as likely to be a poison as a cure, but they're all lumped together in the hype. And it's not like we didn't already know that plants are a good source of medici…

Totally. In fact, the fourth thing I think of - after aromatherapy, perfume, and flavouring - is the use of safrole (from sassafras essential oil) in the manufacture of MDMA...

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#29

Post by ben_pr » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 4:00 AM UTC

I have used essential oils for nearly everything including internal consumption, external issues, cleaning everything(alternative to bleach, etc), veterinary and can say they work. However, there are a lot of claims out there regarding essential oils that aren't true, so make sure you check a reliable source before you proceed.

Quality is very important, all essential oils are not the same.

It takes a lot of self education to take care of your own health but well worth it in the end.

Re: Essential Oils Might Be the New Antibiotics

#30

Post by sp332 » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 4:03 AM UTC

LogicFailsMe wrote: post #22

I used to have an incurable sinus infection that plagued me every winter. Antibiotics were worthless. Then, after X-rays confirmed my maxillary sinuses were filled to the brim with crud and doctors wanted to cut out large swaths of my sinuses, I decided to hang upside down on my personal quack theory that it might let them drain. To my somewhat surprise, every day I did this an unholy brew of dark brown mucus and blo…

Since most sinus infections are viral, antibiotics probably did nothing at all.