Lavender’s Soothing Scent Could Be More Than Just Folk Medicine
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I’m a psychiatrist, and I have prescribed it a few times for patients that I treat. There’s a version of it available in the US called CalmAid that is identified as the same isolate in Silexan.
International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice. 2013. 10.3109/13651501.2013.813555
Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. 2017. 10.1097/jcp.0000000000000615
Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2017. 10.3389/fphar.2017.00280
Edit: added info on an RCT, a meta-analysis, and some work on the mechanism of action
Edit: these are really interesting studies by the way, thanks.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13651501.2013.81...
https://journals.lww.com/psychopharmacology/Citation/2017/02...
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2017.0028...
Also, more articles relating to lavender oil preparation and treatment of anxiety:
So a paper with a DOI of 10.3109/13651501.2013.813555 can be reached by going to: doi.org/10.3109/13651501.2013.813555
Article #2 (doi 10.1097/jcp.0000000000000615) is a meta-analysis that seems to not have Kasper in the author list, but then if you read the full article you'll see that every single one of the studies they analyze minus one are all Kasper's!
Isn't this super shady? How is any of this kosher????
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And the Kasper meta-analysis I mention above was funded by the makers of Silexan:
> The research presented in this paper was funded by Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG, manufacturer of Silexan, who was also the sponsor of the trials included in the meta-analysis. The statistical analysis plan for the meta-analysis was conceived and the analyses were performed by the biostatistical department of Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG under the responsibility of co-author SS. The company also provided the raw data of the trials included into the analyses. A first draft of the manuscript was prepared by Andreas Völp, Ph.D., an independent medical writer who was reimbursed by Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG, who also independently performed the risk of bias assessments. Open access funding provided by Medical University of Vienna.
And of the other authors:
> Hans-Jürgen Möller has received grant/research support, consulting fees and honoraria within the last years from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Cilag, Lundbeck, MSD, Novartis, Organon, Otsuka, Pfizer, Schwabe, Sepracor, Servier, and Wyeth. Hans-Peter Volz has served as a consultant or on advisory boards for Astra/Zeneca, Eli Lilly, Lundbeck, Pfizer, Schwabe, Janssen, Otsuka, Merz, Wyeth, neuraxpharm and has served on speakers’ bureaus for Astra/Zeneca, Eli Lilly, Lundbeck, Schwabe, Janssen, Merz, Wyeth, Lichtwer, Steigerwald, Hormosan, neuraxpharm and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Angelika Dienel and Sandra Schläfke are employees of Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG, manufacturer of Silexan. Siegfried Kasper received grants/research support, consulting fees and/or honoraria within the last 3 years from Angelini, AOP Orphan Pharmaceuticals AG, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Janssen, KRKA-Pharma, Lundbeck, Neuraxpharm, Pfizer, Pierre Fabre, Schwabe and Servier.
[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00406-017-0852-4
Also, this is an inexpensive, over-the-counter treatment for mild to moderate anxiety. So I am comfortable considering a treatment with more modest research support, particularly if the patient has tried and failed other better-supported interventions, or refuses to try them.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Way-Chamomile-Flowers-Capsule...
Did the Psych Ward cause your breakdown or make it worse? I always that people were having the breakdown first, and then you would go to the ward after.
How long do they take to discharge you after a breakdown?
It depends on what kind of breakdown and what the problem was to begin with. Some people hurt themselves when they have an episode, and those people usually get another week or two tacked on, sometimes more. I didn't hurt myself so I was discharged on normal time (about three weeks). It also depends on how well you respond to treatment even after an episode. The main thing is showing signs of recovery and having an "action plan" that you draw up with your doctor and the nurses for figuring out your life after discharge.
The key here is this was a very targeted and prescribed treatment performed by trained professional staff with a lavender oil product intended for use in a hospital. Not some huckster MLM agent that selling good knows what.
It is hard to tell which is worse, if these non-pharmaceuticals are completely ineffective or potent medicines.
If this destroys the oily-MLM huns, that would be a side benefit.
Besides, lavender shares a chemical makeup with many other common herbs and foods, or combinations thereof, and nobody is claiming that those disrupt our hormones. The whole hypothesis doesn't pass the smell test.
I'm just curious where you position naturalist stores? I can go and buy lavender essential oils for <$5 that will last a long time with using it multiple times a day.
I understand there's a hangup with science-oriented people on natural/holistic therapies, but I feel like you're misrepresenting things to support your biased mindset.
When I asked about it, they mentioned it was like a morning coffee, they felt it woke them up, and "got their brain firing".
I gave it a go, and (n=1) it definitely felt like a pick me up. I grow rosemary in my garden now, and every morning as I am getting ready for work I will grab a bit and smell away.
https://www.endocrine.org/news-room/2018/chemicals-in-lavend...
This might stop some of the people who jump on bandwagons from using it without talking with a doctor first.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/lavender-tea-t...
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=20&q=lavender+antia...
but merely smelling it should be a much smaller exposure. Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, I just like to read a lot.
The articles say that it doesn't increase serum estrogen levels but I wonder if it might help the skin to achieve more "female" properties.
The authors try to bolster their credibility by including some in-vitro evidence of estrogenic activity, which is extra-credit bullshit because there are plenty of common (and natural) substances that can disrupt hormones in a test tube, but show no such ability in actual humans. This is cheap research that the authors sensationalized with three completely uncontrolled and unblinded anecdotes. It blows my mind that this thing got published.
Notice how many other studies in your list cite that the Henley report. Also notice how many more recent studies list the same authors, namely Henley and Korach. Given the poor quality of their work and the overall implausibility of the proposed effect in vivo, I'd recommend taking their reports with a large amount of salt, at least until actual in-vivo effects are demonstrated in a higher quality study.
Case studies are widely used in medicine. But thanks for the downvote.
>Notice how many other studies in your list cite that the Henley report.
Here is a different report (early puberty in a girl):
https://www.pediatricnursing.org/article/S0882-5963(16)00076...
>Given the poor quality of their work and the overall implausibility of the proposed effect in vivo, I'd recommend taking their reports with a large amount of salt, at least until actual in-vivo effects are demonstrated in a higher quality study.
The cautious option is to avoid systemic use of lavender in populations where xenoestrogenic activity may be undesirable. Particularly in light of the fact that the “refutation” you linked was written by someone with an obvious conflict of interest.
Why are you saying I downvoted you? I'm not trying to be adversarial, just trying to provide counterpoints to what I believe is poor-quality reporting. Case studies are indeed often used in research. However in this situation we have an n=3 sampling without even a semblance of scientific control or analysis. They apparently didn't even bother to confirm whether the products that the kids were using actually contained lavender, much less characterize the quantity or composition. This isn't scientific by any stretch of the imagination. It's pure anecdote. It's no better than a facebook rumor.
> Here is a different report (early puberty in a girl)
Okay, another single case report, and again no analysis of the product being used, and no analysis of the "other CAM remedies" that the mother was reportedly using, nor any attempt to isolate other coincident changes in diet, treatment, chemical exposure, etc. Not sure how this helps anything.
> The cautious option is to avoid systemic use of lavender in populations where xenoestrogenic activity may be undesirable.
I disagree. You are of course free to be as cautious as you like, but IMO it's a paranoia that isn't justified by the research we've seen so far.
And as I said, the whole thing doen't really make sense. If we really do have to worry about lavender, then we're pretty fucked, because the chemicals of interest (such as the eight studied in the report you cited) are everywhere. Eucalyptus, basil, coriander, pine oil, mints of all kinds, citrus of all kinds... all of these and many more contain estrogenic terpenes in quantities similar to (or greater than) lavender. Are you going to be cautious of these as well if someone starts a rumor that they can disrupt your hormones?
> Particularly in light of the fact that the “refutation” you linked was written by someone with an obvious conflict of interest.
Tisserand's monetary interest in the industry could well lead to a conflict of interest. I don't know anything about him, but I'll grant that. But be careful about discounting him out of hand; it's easy to cross over into ad-hominem attacks. That he may have a dog in this fight doesn't necessarily make him wrong, and it doesn't make Henley's report more legit. Do you have a specific quarrel with Tisserand's reasoning? Do you have a rebuttal to his rebuttal, so to speak?
Agreed and that's why I said there's a "fear" about it and not a "scientific fact".
The hypothesis is highly questionable to begin with, simply because the chemicals in lavender that show hormone disruption in vitro (almost all of them terpenes in the latest studies) are ubiquitous in nature, being present in hundreds of other widely consumed foods and herbs, often in high concentrations. Nature has surrounded us with these chemicals, and we've evolved in their presence. It would be really odd for lavender to cause problems, and not any of the other plants that contain the same substances.
The 2007 report (by Henley et al) that kicked off the whole panic over lavender and tea tree oil is a textbook case of poor quality pseudo-research that should never have been published. It had a sample size of three. That's right, three. It was neither blinded nor controlled in any way. It was simply a doctor who thought he noticed a decrease in gynecomastia among three kids after they stopped using some products that might have contained lavender or tea tree oil. If you want to know what's wrong with scientific publishing and reporting nowadays, reading about this case is a great place to start [1].
1 - https://roberttisserand.com/2013/02/lavender-oil-is-not-estr...
Update: OK, weirdly enough, Tisserand seems to be highly involved in the aromatherapy industry per their own website, and the study [0] seems to involve researchers from the "Research Institute for Fragrance Materials" which sounds suspiciously like an industry-related group - is this reputable at all??
[0] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1091581812472209
> Does the 2013 rebuttal study in that link tell us anything about the safety of ingesting lavender extract?
No, only topical application, albeit in far greater quantities than is seen in typical usage.
> Wouldn't that involve much higher absorption than topical application?
No, not necessarily. Silexan is delivered in 80mg doses. Higher levels of the same chemicals can easily be delivered by common foods. For example, a dish that's well seasoned with thyme or coriander can easily contain far more than 80 mg of linalool, and a few other ingredients would easily provide the same terpenoid profile as found in lavender, just as if you were to eat a large amount of lavender oil. Lavender really isn't anything special.
"This may be traced to the OR6A2 gene, an olfactory receptor able to bind many of the aldehydes implicated in the herb's very particular smell. Perhaps those with a specific variation in the gene are particularly sensitive to its soapiness."
http://mentalfloss.com/article/91060/why-does-cilantro-taste...
https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/20...
She now sells sleep patches: https://www.noctilessence.com/
You devise a hypothesis, you confirm it as good as you can in an experiment and document the procedure. Someone else then peer reviews your study and finds any potential mistakes, if the research looks promising enough an independent research team will devise a larger study with more funding to verify the claims, repeat this X times until some sort of conclusion can be made.
Again, I’m partial against this study but at least it’s a study.
I would replace promising with profitable.
Yeah, so would we all, but studies like this are how researchers build up a hypothesis and funding to do larger more powerful studies.
This Hacker News meme of being dismissive of research is pointless and should stop. Cynicism and snark don't add to the discussion.