Understanding the symptoms of coronavirus and its severity is important to understand the appropriate treatments and essential oils to be employed to help the recovery of coronavirus patients.
In this post, we’ll be presenting a research that shows that some essential oils do not influence the length of treatment for COVID19 patients. We also included some of our insights as to how we can verify how essential oils can affect some symptoms of COVID19.
An Indonesian quasi-experimental case-control study investigated the effects of essential oil on the length of stay of COVID-19 patients in a hospital. The respondents in the study were forty COVID-19 patients that were treated in the isolation room of Koja Jakarta Hospital in February 2021. The patients were assigned into two groups. The treatment group had thieves and lemon essential oil therapy while the control group did not receive the oil treatment (1)
13 days, 17 days, or 30 days are the usual isolation time for coronavirus patients with symptoms. Typically, before COVID-positive patients are sent home it usually takes 7-10 days for them to stay in the hospital to go through intensive treatment. In Koja Jakarta Hospital, where the study was conducted, the typical length of treatment for COVID-19 patients is 14 days. (1) In the results of this case-control study, it was found out that most of the covid patients needed treatment for more than 10 days, and no patients were treated for less than ten days. Hence, most of the COVID-19 patients had a length of stay of more than 10 days. Moreover, the results showed that there was no significant difference in the length of stay between the essential oil treatment group and the control group. As the treatment group also had an average duration stay of more than 10 days despite receiving the thieves and lemon essential oils. Most of the respondents (95%) stayed in the hospital for more than 10 days, while only 5% stayed in the hospital for 10 exact days because they only have mild symptoms and no comorbidities. These patients were declared cured within 10 days, and their swab results were negative, thus, were allowed to go home.
Factors to consider to determine the efficacy of thieves and lemon essential oil on coronavirus
The researchers might have focused on how to speed up the length of treatment for COVID-19 patients, hence it was reported in this study that thieves and lemon oil therapy did not affect the length of treatment for COVID-19 patients. However, this does not mean that the essential oils do not affect the symptoms of COVID. To see the effect of essential oils on COVID symptoms, the following factors might be considered for research.
1. Focus on particular symptoms
The research study did not mention the particular COVID symptom it is targeting to address. Determining the efficacy of oil would be difficult if a study does not focus on a particular symptom. Linking the recovery and length of stay in the hospital does not say much as to how the oils affect a certain health concern or symptom, nor whether it reduced the severity of a particular symptom. The basis for improvement must be mentioned. Identifying the target symptom and how it will be measured will be helpful to determine the efficacy of an oil in addressing a certain health condition. For COVID, it would be helpful if researchers clearly identify whether their study focuses on the treatment of anosmia or loss of smell, inflammation severity, virus reduction or control, respiratory tract relaxation, clearing the airways, shortness of breath, cough, runny nose, or boosting the immune system. These are the common symptoms of COVID and choosing at least one or a few manifestations from here would be better to understand the oil’s efficacy. It seemed bias to claim that the essential oils used in this study do not have any impact nor help in improving the immune system function or other COVID symptoms. We can not determine what is effective in boosting the immune system and what is not if we do not measure it. If the essential oil used has been assessed and results vividly showed that it did not affect nor improve the immune system in the pre-treatment and post-treatment, and the effect has no significant difference between the control group and the group that used the essential oil, then it is safe to say that the essential oils do not have immunostimulator properties.
2. Application method
One of the details that were not provided in the online version of the research article is the application method used. Hence, you might find yourself being curious whether the essential oils were ingested through the mouth or inhaled. Since it has been mentioned in the research article that it’s aromatherapy, it would seem rational to suppose that the inhalation method was employed. It is important to note though, that inhaling the aroma of oils is effective if your concern is related to sleeping, boosting mood, aiding to make you feel good, or anxiolytic. The inhalation method focuses on the effect of the aroma and not absorbing the oil’s therapeutic chemical components. If the focus of this present study is anosmia, then inhalation method would be ideal to be utilized
However, if you are addressing inflammation, virucidal, antibacterial, and other symptoms, then the ingestion method or topical application is more suited. This is because the active ingredients of the oil which possess the therapeutic properties can be easily absorbed by your skin if you use topical application or by your throat if you ingest it through your mouth. Through this way, the oil can easily move through your veins, and the molecules will be absorbed by your cells hence oils can work on a cellular level.
3. Appropriate Essential oil choice
The essential oils used in the study are good for air freshening, cleaning, and household care. However since COVID is caused by a strong virus, then oils with strong antiviral properties or proven to have immune-boosting effects must also be chosen. Active ingredients, therapeutic properties and efficacy proofs must be considered when choosing an essential oil to employ. For instance, if you are treating a virus, then antiviral essential oils must be chosen. If targeting cough, then essential oils that are good for the respiratory system must be used. If you choose essential oils that do not have active ingredients that can address your symptom or health concern then most chances are it will not be effective. Moreover, if you do not identify a particular symptom or health condition to be treated at the onset of the study, then you might just choose any essential oil that you think has health benefits. However, this does not mean that its therapeutic properties match the health issue or symptom you are trying to address.
Make the right choice of essential oils ❤
Reference:
- (1) Rahayu Rahayu∗ , Achmad Fauzi, and Linda Juniati, (2022), “The Effect of Essential Oil Therapy and Lemon on the Care of COVID-19 Patients in Jakarta” in The International Virtual Conference on Nursing, KnE Life Sciences, pages 805–812. DOI 10.18502/kls.v7i2.10381
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