Essential oils: How safe? How effective?
Given the ubiquity of these plant-based oils, your patients might ask about using them. Here’s the evidence on safety and efficacy to guide your response.
PRACTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
› Utilize lavender essential oil as an adjunctive treatment for fibromyalgia, dysmenorrhea, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms. B
› Recommend peppermint essential oil as an adjunctive treatment for irritable bowel syndrome, chemotherapy-induced nausea, and headache. B
Strength of recommendation (SOR)
A Good-quality patient-oriented evidence
B Inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence
C Consensus, usual practice, opinion, disease-oriented evidence, case series
GI disorders
Irritable bowel syndrome. Peppermint oil relaxes GI smooth muscle, which has led to investigation of its use in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptom amelioration.17 One meta-analysis including 12 RCTs with 835 patients with undifferentiated IBS found that orally ingested peppermint EO capsules reduced patient-reported symptoms of either abdominal pain or global symptoms.18
One study utilized the Total IBS Symptom Score to evaluate symptom reduction in patients with IBS-D (with diarrhea) and IBS-M (mixed) using 180-mg peppermint EO capsules ingested 3 times daily. There was a significant improvement in abdominal pain/discomfort, bloating/distension, pain at evacuation, and bowel urgency.19 A reduction in symptoms was observed after the first 24 hours of treatment and at the end of the 4-week treatment period.
In another study, among the 190 patients meeting Rome IV criteria for general (nonspecific) IBS who were treated with 182-mg peppermint EO capsules, no statistically significant reduction in overall symptom relief was found (based on outcome measures by the FDA and European Medicines Agency). However, in a secondary outcome analysis, peppermint oil produced greater improvements than placebo for the alleviation of abdominal pain, discomfort, and general IBS severity.20
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. Patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy often explore integrative medicine approaches, including aromatherapy, to ameliorate adverse effects and improve quality of life.38 A few small studies have shown potential for the use of inhaled ginger oil to reduce nausea and vomiting severity and improve health-related quality-of-life measures in these patients.
For example, a study with 60 participants found that inhaling ginger EO for 10 minutes was beneficial for reducing both nausea and vomiting.39 A single-blind, controlled, randomized crossover study of 60 patients with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy showed that ginger EO inhaled 3 times per day for 2 minutes at a time can decrease the severity of nausea but had no effect on vomiting. The same study showed that health-related quality of life improved with the ginger oil treatment.40
Continue to: Other EOs such as cardamom...
