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Essential Oils Kill MRSA
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) – photo: J. S. Peterson @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database Aromatherapy oils ‘kill superbug’ reads the headline – Essential oils could kill the deadly MRSA hospital ‘superbug’, scientists have claimed.1 One wonders why it has taken so long for prior research not to be recognized by the medical establishment, and for them to then come to the conclusion that certain essential oils ‘kill’ the deadly infectious Superbug M.R.S.A. (Methicillin-resitant staphylococcus aureus) that stalks our hospitals in the past decade! This is not news for many aromatherapists who have known for years that practical use of essential oils in hospitals would greatly benefit staff and patients to guard against this infection, but could do nothing about the situation. Nobody instrumental in the medical hierarchy was ‘lending their ears’. The switch of emphasis from the medicinal value and use of aromatherapeutic essential oils to a ‘Big Time’ uptake by the beauty industry, which multiplied around 1995, may be partly to blame. Although it is advantageous that we can now aim to purchase cosmetic and toiletry products that are beneficial, the more holistic manufacturers aspire to doing much better. Plus the E.U.’s tangle of rules and regulations, like a crazy cat playing with a skein of wool, has also helped to diminish the allowance and ability for use of essential oils by serious aromtherapists. Suddenly, essential oils were made ‘light-weight’ and regarded by the public not so much as a potentially powerful tool that could be used to aid their health and well-being, but more as something to do with ‘perfume’ or a nice smell in toiletries, or to be associated with long luxurious indulgence at the beauty parlour. The medicinal value of essential oils rapidly got lost in the shuffle between the birth of a previously ‘off-shoot’ beauty industry into it becoming the main focus. Funding for aromatherapeutic research done in conjunction with aromatherapists has been stuck at next to nil for years, except for a few forays into the field of Lavender oil. Even the latest research team at the University of Manchester is reported to require around £30,000 in order to continue this new research – a mere droplet in the ocean in pharmaceutical industry terms! When 5,000 patients annually die in hospital, many from hospital-related infections, it beggars belief that this type of practical research with eons of anecdotal evidence, plenty of case work and existing other prior research, should be in such dire straights - as is the public as a result! The use of essential oils against infection in hospitals is also not a new idea. Swedish Doctor and Author Axel Munthe (1857-1949) in his book The Story of San Michele (1929), which can be read in 45 languages, but was originally written in English, mentioned how Rosemary oil was used in the waters to clean French hospitals in 1926!2
Science speaks volumes! Almost all essential oils are bactericidal to a varying degree, and several are anti-viral and fungicidal, but in recent time Australian Tea Tree oil (Melaleuca alternifolia) has particularly been shown to be highly contra-infection. Due credit should be given to the young Christine Carson, ‘A wizardess of Oz’, who in the spring of 1995 was the first to discover with co-workers in Britain that tea tree oil could kill MRSA3 In 2000, further London research at St. Thomas’s hospital no less, found that a rapid killing time (less than 60 min) was achieved with most Staphylococcus, but that MRSA was killed more slowly.4 In the autumn of 2001, in Taiwan, the antibacterial activities of the essential oils from leaves of two Cinnamomum osmophloeum clones, (Common name: Camphor Tree syn. Chinese Chang Shu), and their chemical constituents, were investigated to despatch E. coli, P. aeruginosa, E. faecalis, S. aureus, S. epidermidis, MRSA, K. pneumoniae, Salmonella sp., and V. parahemolyticus. The results suggested that C. osmophloeum leaf essential oil and cinnamaldehyde are beneficial to human health, having the potential to be used for medical purposes and to be utilized as anti-bacterial additives in making paper products.5 The same year more progress about dosage was being made by Japanese researchers, who compared plaunotol, a cytoprotective anti-ulcer agent, with tea tree oil and found the latter was effective over a lower range of concentrations than previously reported. It was very effective ‘in vitro’ against MSSA and MRSA at high concentrations, but less effective below 40 microgrammes/mil.6 Still in Japan, the effects of the essential oils of peppermint (Mentha piperita L.), spearmint (Mentha spicata L.) and Japanese mint (Mentha arvensis L.) were tested for Helicobacter pylori, MRSA and other pathogens. The essential oils and the various constituents inhibited the proliferation of each pathogen in a dose-dependent manner.7 The antibacterial activities varied among the bacterial species tested but were almost the same against antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-sensitive strains of Helicobacter pylori and S. aureus. Mint essential oils may not be the first choice for eradicating MRSA, but it does confirm that eating after-dinner dark chocolate coated mint wafers is no bad thing. In the spring of 2002 another Australian essential oil emerged with some promise. Lemon myrtle, (Backhousia citriodora), which showed significant antimicrobial activity against many organisms: Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans, methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), Aspergillus niger, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Propionibacterium acnes comparable to its major component-citral. It was concluded that a product containing 1% lemon myrtle oil, found to be low in toxicity, could potentially be used in the formulation of topical anti-microbial products.8 The following year further Australian research showed that the anti-microbial activity of Lemon myrtle oils were found to be greater than that of citral alone and often superior to tea tree essential oil. It was suggested that it has potential as an antiseptic of surface disinfectant or for inclusion in foods as a natural anti-microbial agent. Some pharmaceutical ‘treatment’ drugs get on to the market in double quick time, so it’s amazing that there is so little reference to essential oils’ research or application of them to cleanse hospitals and curb epidemic food poisoning!9 Essential oil research is admittedly seemingly sporadic and wide-spread and comes from many different quarters, but mainly falls short on follow-up, probably due to lack of interest and funding. This year, nine years after Christine Carson’s breakthrough on tea tree oil for MRSA, in a randomized controlled clinical trial two topical MRSA eradication regimes were compared in hospital patients: The tea tree preparations were effective, safe and well tolerated and, it is suggested, could be considered in regimens for eradication of MRSA infection carriage.10 Things are beginning to ‘hot up’, because this month (December 2004) patchouli, tea tree, geranium, lavender essential oils and Citricidal (grapefruit seed extract) were used singly and in combination to assess their anti-bacterial activity against three strains of Staphylococcus aureus: Oxford S. aureus, Epidemic methicillin-resistant S. aureus and MRSA (untypable). It was found that a combination of Citricidal and geranium oil showed the greatest-anti-bacterial effects against MRSA, whilst a combination of geranium and tea tree oil was most active against the methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (Oxford strain). The UK researchers concluded that they had demonstrated the potential of essential oils and essential oil vapours as antibacterial agents and for use in the treatment of MRSA infection. The news bulletin did not relate which essential oils were tested in the Manchester University research. However, it is reported that they found three of the oils tested destroyed MRSA and E.coli bacteria in two minutes. It was also suggested that the oils could be blended into soaps and shampoos which could be used in hospitals to stop the spread of the superbug. Also, that “essential oils could be used to create much more pleasant inhalation therapies, which were likely to have a much higher success rate than the current treatment, which is only effective in around 50% of cases.”11 Unless they are permanently occupied, why not fumigate operating theaters by vapourizing the oils? Why not use natural essential oils for nursing staff liquid hand-wash soap and wipes? Why not do as the French used to once and put these bug-killing essential oils into the waters used to clean the wards and all hospital areas? Why not put the oils into the laundry and dishwashing facilities where possible and/or applicable? Why not put the oils into a handy spray for cleaners to use? And, by the same token, because of late MRSA has been detected in shops’ and stores’ changing rooms, use it there likewise to stop the spread into the public domain of these life-threatening bugs? Do we have to wait until the use of essential oils is finally wrested from the hands of aromatherapists and made into products by the pharmaceutical industry at great cost before we see any real improvement in the hygiene of hospitals and the prevention of MRSA spreading publicly further and wider? COMMENT: Aromatherapists have long been bereft of funding for and/or encouragement to do their own research. With the exception more recently of a handful of practitioners, sound experienced aromatherapists have not been able to integrate with either the academic or medical science establishments in this field.
Aromatherapy administered correctly by dedicated knowledgeable aromatherapists is an important therapy. I, for one, was attracted by the scientific aspect of aromatherapy and would never have contemplated becoming an aromatherapist without first studying essential oils before coming to a decision to be trained and reading the only early research work done in the 1940’s until her death in 1968 by pioneer Marguerite Maury, known as the Mother of modern aromatherapy practice.12
Few can see in to the future, and one trusts things will change, but in the late 1980s-1990s any hope of contributing to the Science side of Aromatherapy was a non-starter, ultimately dashed by three stumbling blocks: lack of interest, lack of practical encouragement and lack of funding by the powers that be. It is not before time that essential oils and their healing and preventive worth should be treated with respect.
References: 1. Aromatherapy oils ‘kill superbug’. BBC News Online 21st December 2004. 2. The Story of San Michele (1929): Born in Oskashamn, Axel Munthe’s family was Flemish in origin. He studied medicine at the University of Uppsala (1874-1880) and in France at Montpellier, Paris (1880), becoming the youngest M.D. created at Montpellier. After practicing in Paris and Italy, Munthe became in 1903 physician to the Swedish Royal family. From 1908 he was the personal physician of the Swedish Queen Victoria (1862-1930). Munthe made his debut as a writer in 1897 with Memories and Vagaries, an account of his work in Paris and Italy. It was followed by Letters from a Mourning City, describing his experience during the 1884 cholera epidemic in Naples. Munthe built his villa on Capri, on the site of the villa of the Roman Emperor Tiberius and named his house San Michele. 3. Christine Carson: ‘Susceptibility of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to the essential oil of Melaleuca alternifolia.’ Carson CF, et al. Dept of Mircobiology, Uv. Of Western Australia, Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre, Nedlands, Australia. J Antimircrob Chemother. 1995 Mar; 35(3):421-4 4. ’Time-kill studies of tea tree oils on clinical isolates.’ May J, et al. Microbiology Dept. St Thomas’ Hospital, London, UK. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2000 May; 45(5):639-43 5. ‘Antibacterial activity of leaf essential oils and their constituents from Cinnamomum osmophloeum.’ Chang ST et al. Dept of Forestry, National Taiwan Uv., Taipei, Taiwan, ROC. J Ethnopharmacol. 2001 Sep;77(1):123-7. 6. ‘Comparison of the effects in vitro of tea tree oil and plaunotol on methicillin-susceptible and methicillin-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus.’ Hada T, et al. Dept. of Microbiology, Showa Pharmaceutical Uv., Machida, Tokyo, Japan. Microbios. 2001;106 Suppl 2:133-41. 7. ‘Inhibition by the essential oils of peppermint and spearmint of the growth of pathogenic bacteria.’ Imai H. et al. Functional Foods Section, Central Lab., Lotte Company Ltd. Urawa, Saitma, Japan. Microbios. 2001;106 Suppl 1:31-9. 8. ‘Toxicity of Australian essential oil Backhousia citriodora (Lemon myrtle). Part 1. Antimicrobial activity and in vitro ctyotoxicity.’ Hayes AJ, Markovic B. Chemical Safety and applied toxicology Laboratories, School of Safety Science, The Uv. of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Food chem. Toxicol. 2002 Apr;40(4):535-43. 9. ‘Bioactivity of Backhousia citriodora: antibacterial and antifungal activity.’ Wilkinson, JM, et al. School of Biomedical Sciences, Charles Stuart Uv., Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia. J Agric Food Chem. 2003 Jan 1;51(1):76-81. 10. ‘A randomized, controlled trial of tea tree topical preparations versus a standard topical regimen for the clearance of MRSA colonization.’ Dryden MS, et al. Dept. of Microbiology and Communicable Disease, Royal Hampshire County Hospital, Winchester, Hampshire, UK. 11. Quoted from Manchester Uv. Research leader Dr Warn. 12. “Le Capital Jeunesse” first published in 1961 and translated by Daniele Ryman into English in 1964 “Marguerite Maury’s Guide to Aromatherapy”. Madame Maury tried to prove and demonstrate through her research that essential oils were effective through skin absorption and inhalation and their effects. She lectured all over Europe, opening aromatherapy clinics in Paris, Switzerland and in England and won international prizes in 1962 and 1967 for her research in essential oils and cosmetology. This year she was honoured posthumously by naming the ‘Aromatherapist of the Year’ award after her.
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