I have summarized for you an article entitled “Essential Oils
Might be the New Antibiotics”, published in The Atlantic
Journal, January 16, 2015 and written by Tori Rodriguez.
“The loss of antibiotics due to antimicrobial resistance is
potentially one of the most important challenges the medical and animal-health
communities will face in the 21st century,” says Dr. Cyril Gay, the senior
national program leader at the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
Livestock consume up to 80 percent of the antibiotics used in the
U.S, according to a recent
FDA report. This rampant use of the drugs
has led to “superbugs” that are becoming increasingly resistant to the
antibiotics that are used to treat not just farm animals, but humans as well.
Almost 70 percent of the antibiotics given to these animals are
classified as “medically important” for humans. In the U.S., antibiotic
resistance caused more than two
million illnesses in 2013, according
to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and an estimated
23,000 deaths. And it will only get worse: a recent
report commissioned by the U.K.
government estimates that drug-resistant microbes could cause more than 10
million deaths and cost the global economy $100 trillion by the year 2050.
Dr. Stuart B. Levy, director of the Center for Adaptation,
Genetics, and Drug Resistance, led a study and found that chickens developed
resistance to the antibiotic tetracycline at a rapid pace–within a week, the
animals had resistant bacteria in their gut. Months later, the resistant
bacteria had spread to untreated chickens and even the farmers. And what was
frightening was that those resistant bacteria also became resistant to other
antibiotics that the chickens hadn’t even consumed!
Several studies done by the USDA have shown great promise in using
essential oils as an alternative to antibiotics in livestock. One of their
studies, published in October 2014 in the journal Poultry
Science, found that chickens who consumed feed with added oregano oil had a
59 percent lower mortality rate due to ascites, a common infection in poultry,
than untreated chickens.
Researchers have also directly compared the effects of commonly used
antibiotics with those of various essential oils. One
such study, from the March 2012 issue of
the Journal of Animal Science, found that rosemary and oregano oils
resulted in the same amount of growth in chickens as the antibiotic avilamycin,
and that the oils killed bacteria, too. Additional findings have shown that essential oils help reduce salmonella
in chickens, and that a blend of several oils can limit the spread of
salmonella among animals. One of the co-authors of that study, Dr. Charles
Hofacre, a professor at the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary
Medicine, says it’s such a new area of research that they don’t yet know
exactly how the essential oils work, but “there is some strong evidence that
they are functioning by both an antibacterial action in the intestine and also
some have an effect to stimulate the intestinal cells’ ability to recover from
disease more quickly–either by local immunity or helping keep the intestinal
cells themselves healthier.”
Research published in December 2013 reported that a hand gel
made with lemongrass oil was effective in reducing MRSA on the skin of human
volunteers, and previous research has shown that a cleanser made with tea-tree oil clears MRSA
from the skin as effectively as the standard treatments to which bacteria
appear to be developing resistance.
Scientists have been testing all kinds of combinations of
essential oils and antibiotics, and they’re repeatedly finding that the
oils—used on their own and in combination with some common antibiotics—can
fight numerous pathogens, including antibiotic-resistant strains of E.
coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and other common types of
bacteria. Results consistently show that combining essential oils and
antibiotics significantly lowers the amount of antibiotic required to do the
job.
Dr. Nicole M. Parrish, associate professor of pathology at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and associate director of medical
mycobacteriology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, says that essential oils
contain some of the most potent antimicrobial compounds available, and that
furthering our understanding of them may lead to the development of entirely
new classes of drugs.
One farmer who has talked publicly about using essential oils is
Scott Sechler, owner of Bell & Evans Farms, a high-end producer of
antibiotic-free poultry. Back in 2012, he told
the New York Times about
his use of oregano oil and cinnamon to fight infection on his 140 farms, with a
total of 9 million chickens. The approach worked better than all other options
he had tried, but he told the Times, “I have worried a bit about
how I’m going to sound talking about this,” adding, “But I really do think
we’re on to something here.”
“With our chicken breed, housing environment, and feeding program,
we’re able to promote healthy gut bacteria—we use oregano oil to kill the bad
bacteria and cinnamon oil to support the good bacteria. But if you meet them
halfway by doing things right, they will carry you across the finish line,”
Sechler says. People warned him that the bacteria would become resistant to the
essential oils, too, but they haven’t yet, and his farms processed over 50
million chickens last year (2014).
Article summarized by Beth Blake.
You can get your Essential Oils here: www.mydoterra.com/bethblake
You'll feel confident you're using the purest oils when you use doTerra.
You can get your Essential Oils here: www.mydoterra.com/bethblake
You'll feel confident you're using the purest oils when you use doTerra.
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