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More evidence essential oils 'make male breasts develop'

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186 pointsplessthanpt0581 comments

soapmaker here. While lavender oil is nice to have, its also rather cost prohibitive in what i believe would be a compelling dose to elicit this type of response.

as for tea tree oil, im in favor of phasing this out entirely as it seems to serve no real purpose in cosmetics and is actually somewhat toxic to humans. Its had a number of folk remedies, such as a cure for syphilis and a tincture to reduce boils, but none of these have succeeded in scientific testing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_tree_oil#Safety

most cold process soaps will fragrance at 3-5% the weight of the actual oil. I can speak from experience that 5% tea tree oil soap is vile. The final product emerges with an acrid fragrance not unlike pine floor cleaner, and each bar is brittle enough to crack if dropped. many crack during the curing process, and the final product has a texture similar to the gear shift on a cheap car.

I thought it was well known that tea tree oil is toxic.

I've been using it for a while do deodorise my shoes. It seems to be effective at killing whatever makes them smell. Anecdotally it also works for killing fungal infections of the feet too, although I've switched to using iodine, which is actually proven to be effective and tends to clear fungal infections within a couple of days.

Tea tree oil kills MRSA on the skin. All the low dose natural products are causing the bacteria to become resistant. Otherwise, for fungal infections soaking feet in vinegar once a day for a week should work just fine. Smells a little.

I wasn't using low dose natural products on my feet.

I had a spray can of 100% tea tree oil that I would spray on my feet. It would sting like hell anywhere I had broken skin but it was effective.

Iodine is much more pleasant to use and doesn't smell so bad, it's cheaper too.

Doesn’t it stain?

Temporarily, it then sublimes directly into gas form without passing through a liquid phase. (Verify before you use it everywhere, but this is what I would expect with the mixes I've used. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine)

The best thing I've found for fungal infections on feet (more effective and faster acting than commercial products) is simple vinegar and garlic. Crush up a few cloves, (maybe microwave in small amount of water for a few seconds), pour a cup or three of vinegar in a container with maybe 3-4 times that amount of water, put the crushed cloves in, let it seep for a bit and soak feet for awhile.

I'm sure there is a more exact specification, but it all seems to work. Problem gone in a day or so.

I can beat that.

Get some bleach, mix in a basin with some water. No good exact amounts, it should smell bleachy and be diluted a fair bit past the point of burning.

Do this, then a couple days later, do it again. Whatever has taken residence on your feet will have moved out.

In China it isn't uncommon for newborn babies to be bathed with tea tree oil (and other plant/herb products) for the first few weeks. I'm not sure what the strength is though.

Could you elaborate on the iodine?

I use povidone-iodine, the common brand name for it is Betadine. It either comes in a small dropper bottle, or as ointment.

You just apply it topically and it will kill any fungal infection within a couple of days.

> Its had a number of folk remedies, [...] but none of these have succeeded in scientific testing.

All the scientific studies that show up in Google show that it has antifungal activity.

The Dr Bronner Tea Tree soap definitely has a hint of pine floor cleaner to it’s smell. :)

"Its had a number of folk remedies, such as a cure for syphilis and a tincture to reduce boils, but none of these have succeeded in scientific testing."

There's scientific testing for tea tree oil that's not hard to find. I'll add my experience to what others are saying which supports it's both useful and probably toxic for same reason.

I got athletes foot a while back. Severe stuff with swelling and bleeding of the feet. They even glowed under a UV light. Trippy. I tried natural solutions like vinegar or baking soda first since that stuff solves lots of my problems. Didn't work. Then, the OTC medicines didn't work. If anything, it's like it went down slightly, then flamed up with more damage in response. It got a holy crap response from lots of people, even some with a version of it before. Like it was a living thing that wanted to pay back torture with torture. Got doctors to prescribe the standard stuff with it not working either. They also prescribed antibiotics in case of infections from the bleeding. Had to bleach and throw away lots of socks.

A friend told me some "folk" story about tea tree oil. Skepticism up. He handed me a study comparing it to a common treatment for my condition with it working in the study. Studies get BS'd a lot I thought. Told me several people he knew had skin conditions treated that way. Placebos or something else not that product? Said I wouldn't figure out what he was giving me. Anyone knowing me or my posts here probably guessed I figured it out before that day was over: a furniture cleaner with tea tree oil as a main ingredient. Lol. So, big container of water for my feet, a few capfuls in it, soak 30 min, and repeat for certain amount of time (can't recall). What to loose...?

Unlike the other treatments, my feet soaking in this stuff felt fairly good. After the time period, it was... gone. Recall I tried acids, alkaline solutions, OTC medicines, and prescription medicines. Then, this furniture cleaner based on tea tree oil killed it in a shorter time than the meds were supposed to with no negative effects. Hell, my feet were even shiny. :) I mean, it did worry me where I wanted to wash it off but they said leave it on. I also kept it up a week or so after the symptoms disappeared just in case. No long term effects that I can see.

"No real purpose." "Folk remedies." "Toxic to humans." These are good replies to all the shit the drug companies and doctors told me to use. None of it worked. It was all damaging in some small or big way. The big being enough that it took more drugs to prevent major problems. The tea tree oil handled the job well fast and with no effects. I'm not saying I trust it in general, think it's a miracle drug past killing the fungi kingdom on my feet, etc. I'm just saying it provably did it's job on living organisms that resisted 8+ months of doctor-prescribed treatments with no sign of weakness until the tea tree oil. I recommend more research be done on applying blends to stuff like that.

It's also hard to tell what damage you might have done to your liver, kidneys, or other organs by applying a furniture cleaner to your skin repeatedly. The unseen (and often delayed) side effects of medications are one reason that the FDA regulates them.

That's a good point. Hopefully none.

Tea tree oil is used widely in the African American community as an effective aftershave, and is used in general as a powerful antiseptic and face wash. Wikipedia has never been and never will be an authoritative source.

The Wikipedia article at least lists its sources, which for the article linked to included the American Cancer Society, National Institutes of Health, and European Commission Scientific Committee on Consumer Products. Those are authoritative enough for me.

My experience has been that confirmation bias is very strong with EO's. What else is in the solution you're using? Its very easy to convince oneself that the EO is the active ingredient when there's so much misinformation on the 'net.

One of my hobbies is herbalism & over a long period of time I've begun to recognize all of the purported benefits of EO's come from other ingredients in whatever is being produced.

That doesn't mean that various herbs don't have active properties however. I've moved on to recognize how useful infused oils can be. (Note: these are of course easy to make yourself, not as easy to produce en mass & keep fresh for regular sale, and don't cost much depending on the oil.)

Can you recommend a way to get started with effective herbalism? Books, resources, etc. I've been fascinated by it for a while but am at a loss on where to begin, or how to separate effective recipes from age old placebos.

I’ve been astounded here today by the number of otherwise scientifically minded people who are seriously interested in homeopathic remedies. At the risk of running afoul of dang again, can I ask what is so attractive about trying to find medical purposes for scented oils when medical science has yet to prove any effect beyond pure placebo?

I lost all interest in the subject when Steve Jobs tried to use herbal remedies to cure cancer and, despite running the most profitable company in the world, died of an easily curable form of cancer. What is it that makes people so hesitant to believe medical science and so willing to believe an article on the Internet saying that lavender oil applied to the humors can cure diseases? I know so many people who forget that “essential” means “the essence/scent of” and not “required for life” and I’ve never been able to figure out why without them getting offended and shutting down.

> what is so attractive about trying to find medical purposes for scented oils when medical science has yet to prove any effect beyond pure placebo

There is a risk here of going down the road of scientism, which is to conflate empiricism and the scientific method itself with a specific, imperfect implementation of it.

I've looked into this myself, and the profit motive for doing well-funded research on plants as a potential medicine are probably 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than for pharmaceuticals that are much easier to control and patent. It can take ~billions to develop a new drug and get it through the FDA process, and it's the potential profits that actually fund the research.

This level of research funding is obviously never going to happen under the current incentive and regulatory structure for investigating plants that anyone can buy for a few dollars, even if those same plants worked just as well as a pharmaceutical drug.

Science is like a high focused searchlight. It obviously isn't going to find things that it doesn't focus much on.

That doesn't mean the things that science has left only briefly examined definitely work (and I anyone who tells you otherwise is probably trying to sell you something), but it does mean that the universe of true facts is much wider than the universe of things that have been definitively proven through science.

I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Many medicines we have are plant-based, and pharmaceutical companies make tons from them. What they do is figure out what about the plant actually works, simulate it with other chemicals, and then sell that. I mean Oxy is super profitable and it’s literally refined cocaine, which is as vegan as you can get.

Under the current incentive and regulatory structure, it seems like literally anything they can prove works, they can get a patent on. Pharma companies are so money hungry that if tea tree oil really did cure cancer, they’d refine it and patent that shit in a heartbeat.

The fact that they haven’t says so much to me.

> What they do is figure out what about the plant actually works, simulate it with other chemicals, and then sell that

That sort of presupposes that what 'works' about the plant is a single, potent 'active ingredient' that can be identified/refined/purified/synthesized; in other words, this requires you to assume that what is convenient for an industrialized pharmaceutical industry is also an accurate reflection of how human health and nature work.

But what if it were the case that the whole plant extract that is actually the most effective, and depends on some synergistic spectrum of phytochemical compounds?

Note that I'm not saying this is necessarily true, but the way the system up we have a chicken and egg scenario here:

1. If it were true that whole plant extracts were more effective for some conditions, you'd need to do a lot of research to prove it, but the research funding presupposes the potential for profit

2. There's no incentive to change the profit incentives currently (where 'find, extract, patent, synthesize is the default assumption), since we don't have much evidence that we should change those incentives

This is a self-reinforcing set of norms, and changing them would require 'extraordinary evidence', except the norms themselves discourage looking for that evidence. Just look at the state of marijuana research over the last 4 decades as one particularly egregious example.

> if tea tree oil really did cure cancer, they’d refine it and patent that shit in a heartbeat

Not if the pharmacologically active ingredient is present in sufficient quantities in the raw plant as well.

You can certainly patent it, but you won't be able to make a profit since people can just go buy/grow the raw plant.

And if backwards induct from that fact, you find that under under very few scenarios would it be rational to dump research money into it since the people paying for it would never (directly) see a return, even if society as a whole benefits.

> I mean Oxy is super profitable and it’s literally refined cocaine, which is as vegan as you can get.

Opium poppy != Coca plant

As for your other statements, there's actually an abundance of medicinal plants and herbs which are not commercialized due to having dose:response curves too unpredictable to be productized and sold to a litigious public.

Medicinal value != commercial value

The list of impactful plants in medicine includes the yew tree.

Digitalis aka Foxglove is the source of cardiac glycosides, which has been used for many years to treat cardiac arrhythmias.

You seem to be conflating homeopathy with herbal remedies. Two totally different things.

Homeopathy involves diluting things until you're left with nothing but a sugar pill.

Herbal remedies involve contact with actual ingredients that may or may not have useful properties.

You’ve confused homeopathy with herbalism/home remedies/supplementation. Homeopathy is basically “if weakened virii inoculate people against infection then surely weakened versions of toxins should do the same.” Herbs and supplements are, at best, whole plant medications. St Johns Wort is prescription only in other countries because it’s very effective against major depression and other things.

Some people go down this route for financial reasons. It is much cheaper for someone without insurance to treat things with OTC things than actually getting insurance while tackling a disease, disorder, or etc.

TLDR: Steve Jobs made a poor life choice. But that doesn’t make everyone not taking chemo or other cancer treatments an idiot. Those are typically prohibitively expensive treatments.

I usually just research options for whatever’s bothering me on the internet. Go slow, though, and stay close to your primary doctor. Also, if you really want to life hack and generally make the most dramatic changes for the better in your life, look at your diet. Food has a majority affect on every part of our lives.

www.erowid.org has a lot of information about psychoactive plants if that's a part of herbalism that could interest you

source?

A better link:

“Since there was no identifiable cause for prepubertal gynecomastia in the three patients we reported, we speculated that environmental factors might be contributing to their condition. Together, the case histories and NIEHS in vitro studies provide support for our hypothesis that topical exposure to lavender and tea tree oils likely caused gynecomastia in the three patients.”

- https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/lavender-tea-t...

This piece refers to a NEJM article from 2007, whereas the link above refers to unpublished work that seems to have solely a press release.

(I wish press offices would stop this practice. It's terribly corrosive.)

Sample size of 3?!

Three boys and a lab test of cancer cells. And they don't expect long term effects from the oils.

The article title is a bit sensationalist, but a thorough investigation is arguably worthwhile

Hmmm, so a there's a broad suspicion that endocrine disruption is a widespread problem, and suddenly we see a dubious article provoking confusion, and possibly a lot of very costly research only to determine we might've been barking up the wrong tree?

This story sounds familiar... [0]

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2146171.stm

>> "The American study found that key chemicals in the oils boost oestrogen and inhibit testosterone."

I find this highly suspect. If the effect were significant, every trans woman I know would be talking about their essential oils instead of salt cravings and estrogen pills/injections.

Is there something to this, or is it another case of shoddy science reporting?

I don't know about the validity if the science, but what they're claiming is that it only affects pre-pubescent & pubescent boys.

So, no help for most trans people.

I doubt the effect is anywhere near large enough to be satisfactory for people who want to transition.

Trans woman here. Was going to say this, but you nailed it.

Just going to confirm right now any effect this has is nowhere close to the kind of estrogen changes that actual hormone therapy provides.

Perhaps not but already I'm wondering if it could enhance the effect of conventional HRT for transgender patients. Certainly something worth further investigation.

Just because substance Y does X doesn't mean it should be used to achieve X in a medical situation. There is usually a substance Z which achieves it more effectively (unless Y was designed to be more effective than Z)

They also say that gynecomastia is rare, which is not true.

Perhaps it originally was statement by the scientists that it is rare among young boys, and the interviewer dropped that condition? Not that I know whether or not it is rare among young boys either.

The post did mention:

> Not everyone will have the same reaction to an essential oil.

>Not everyone will have the same reaction...

Is there even a single substance on earth this doesn't apply to?

Yes, think substances used for positive controls, e.g. histamine for skin-prick tests (allergen response).

>...substances used for positive controls, e.g. histamine for skin-prick tests...

Are you 100% certain that every single person, regardless of age, health, or any other criteria will always have the exact same response to these, under every conceivable circumstance and environment?

To have no reaction on a histamine test you would have to be on antihistamines OR have a malfunctioning innate immune system _and_ malfunctioning vasculature and/or severe malnutrition to the point where you're at deaths door (possibly not even then, those extreme cases aren't usually considered when administering allergen tests). Assuming the dose is controlled the result is a small, well pronounced welt ~0.8mm diameter. It's very consistent, you know that it will occur (because it's the direct primary mediator), that why you use it as a positive control (also you control for it, thats the point of a positive control).

In answer to you question, barring the use of antihistamines, pretty much.

There might be something to this.

Coworker P and coworker S shared an office. Coworker P got a device that filled the office with a haze of vaporized essential oils. It was sort of a large-scale vaping device, a bit like a humidifier or fog machine.

Coworker S was a married father of two who seemed rather ordinary. After a bunch of time sharing that office, Coworker S decided to transition.

So, it's just an anecdote, but I don't think I'll be taking my chances with essential oils.

> father of two who seemed rather ordinary

Besides the fact that this language makes trans people not "ordinary", lots of people transition later in life. There are more role models and resources now than ever before, and lots of people take time to feel secure in their identity. My point is there's nothing unusual about transitioning once you have kids, even though it can be harder.

Also, elevated estrogen wouldn't make you transition. If you think you're a man and you start growing breasts you aren't going to say "whoops, I'm a woman now I guess". Transitioning is a hell of a lot more work than just deciding one day, and typically people pre-tra sition have typical hormones for their assigned gender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw

From personal experience, I avoid eating too much tofu. At one point, I had a condition called gynecomastia. The doctor asked me about my diet (eating steamed tofu every day) and recommended that I stop based on some research he had read. Condition went away.

Just bro science here, but if tofu had a real effect on the hormones, wouldn't that mean that gynecomastia should have a much higher prevalence in the countries, such as Japan, where tofu is consumed daily?

Genetic variance based on geography much like the situation with lactose intolerance.

Does anyone know why there seem to be so many more estrogenic substances compared to androgenic substances, in our everyday lives?

It seems a bit unfair ...

Speculation is that plants produce phytoestrogens for herbivore birth control.

"Phytochemical mimicry of reproductive hormones and modulation of herbivore fertility by phytoestrogens" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1474615/

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing. Question: so are plants leeching it into the soil => our water supply? Or is it the plants that we're eating?

Plants have phytosterols instead of cholesterol. If anything, predation chose for plants that had some population controlling affects on predators. But I’ve read those same compounds are completely ignored by our bodies.

I’m going to suggest there’s more going on than we know here. Ie there are toxic compounds leaching into food from plastic containers, possibly water supply, and definitely cooking utensils.

I started using a diffuser at home, typically with tea tree or eucalyptus oil. It helps me relax, maybe via the placebo effect. But I have also become somewhat obsessed with it, to the point where I have a diffuser at home, the office, and even in my car. Had anyone else had this experience?

This sounds like a somewhat minor psychological addiction (I'm not a doctor though and addiction is not always harmful)

It can't be worse than my coffee addiction...

See, now this lends some credence to the idea that the oils can have any (medicinal or other) effect at all... which up to this point I found highly suspect.

2 years ago I had a boil on my neck that lingered for months. It shrank to nearly nothing within a week or two of tea tree oil.

But now I'm worried about manboobs. So far so good though.

Another comment indicated that it's poisonous, so I assume that's how it worked for you.

I'll take it

Given the problems with replication, and the selection biases, I’ve decided it’s a safe bet to ignore the implications of articles about health studies!

It’s shocking how many dietary and medical practices have been championed, and then later repudiated.

One challenging example: fish oil.

Article saying it’s good...

http://time.com/4619488/omega-3-fats-heart-health/

Article questioning the overall research:

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/fish-oil-claims-no...

I'm happy to be so sensitive to any kind of flavor to eliminate everything that smells from my life, more or less. I guess it is some form of innate protection.

Drat, my favourite toothpaste contains tea tree oil.

That's a terrible idea.

> Tea tree oil is poisonous when taken internally.[1][4] It may cause drowsiness, confusion, hallucinations, coma, unsteadiness, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach upset, blood cell abnormalities, and severe rashes. It should be kept away from pets and children.[1] Tea tree oil should not be used in or around the mouth.[2][4] As a test of toxicity by oral intake, the median lethal dose (LD50) in rats is 1.9–2.4 ml/kg.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_tree_oil#Safety

If it's "Tom's", then I would take this as another sign to switch to a toothpaste that actually cleans your teeth instead of your wallet.

The hypothesis is that topical exposure is linked to the hormone changes. For me, that means tea tree oil in toothpaste shouldn't be something to worry about.

Tea tree oil should NOT be taken by mouth for any reason, even though some traditional uses include tea tree oil as a mouthwash, treatment for bad breath, and treatment of toothache and mouth ulcers.

https://www.poison.org/articles/2010-dec/tea-tree-oil

Don’t you get the oil when you drink tea?

Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree) is a different plant altogether than Camellia sinensis (Tea plant)

Tea tree smells very similar to turpentine - you know: paint thinner. I often wondered if they are chemically similar.

Despite the name, tea is not made from the tea tree.

My guess is that absorption via the mouth (and via saliva by swallowing after brushing) is going to be higher than absorption via the skin. Wrong?

He should have included sarcasm tags I think.

I guess that the amount it contains is so low that it can not have any effect on your health.

There's probably less than half a drop of oil in the tube and most of that is spat out. So as a poison, yes, no effect. But as a hormone, it depends. I don't know.

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