Follow Essential Oil Experts that Research Essential Oils, Not Alarmist Herbalists

April Graham, a self-proclaimed essential oil-free herbalist, is stirring up controversy with her eBook titled Essentially Deadly: The Unspoken Dangers of Essential Oils, where she claims essential oils are harming your health. She even goes as far as to argue they are deadly. Her website has a long blog and synopsis of her arguments where she lists several reasons why she chooses not to use essential oils that are filled with half-truths and misguided information. This article will challenge these exaggerated claims with evidence, rather than opinion, primarily to ease the anxiety she created among people who have safely enjoyed essential oils for years or decades.

Her first argument is based on the reason that plants produce essential oils. She states, “these compounds are being produced by plants to act as a defense mechanism against insects. In other words, poison.” This reductionist conclusion ignores the fact that essential oils are beneficial to the plant and believed to be produced as secondary metabolites for three primary reasons: 1) defend the plant against infections and predators, 2) indirectly participate in plant tissue healing, and 3) play a role in allelopathy and the attraction of pollinators and animals to disperse their seed. (Reference)

It is also ironic that an herbalist is not aware that other secondary metabolites produced by plants serve a similar purpose. For example, polyphenols are a diverse group of secondary metabolites found in many herbs and plants that also act as a defense mechanism against infections, environmental stresses, and predators, participate in allelopathy, and also attract pollinators. (Reference) And this is only one class of plant compounds that serve a similar purpose as what she calls dangerous when it applies to essential oils. (Reference) In other words, she conveniently uses this argument against essential oils, while ignoring the fact that it also applies to herbs.

Her next unfounded claim is that essential oils may be produced by plants as waste products. This is illogical at face value, since essential oils are produced at high metabolic cost to the host plant. Indeed, there is no credible evidence to suggest that essential oils are produced by plants as waste products. (Reference) Instead, they serve specific and important roles in plant biology. (Reference)

While I agree that the scent of essential oils is powerful and can profoundly affect human physiology, her assertion that “their ‘scent’ alone is strong enough to kill your gut flora” is easily dismissed by the available science on essential oils and the microbiome. She even goes as far as to compare essential oils to the harm caused by second-hand smoke, a laughable comparison at best. One preclinical study evaluated exactly this scenario and found that both inhaling and ingesting orange (Citrus sinensis) essential oil improved gut microbiome diversity, not to mention improved immune function. (Reference) Clinical research also confirms that ingesting essential oil improves the gut microbiome, no destroys it. (Reference) For further discussion of this topic, including references, please read pages 43–44 of my book Medicinal Essential Oils: The Science and Practice of Evidence-Based Essential Oil Therapy or watch a synopsis here. Again, her conclusion simply isn’t fact-based and is contradicted by the available evidence.

Another assertion she makes is parroting the completely debunked myth that essential oils disrupt the endocrine system. Something that has been repeatedly discredited by experts and scientists alike. (Reference) Continuing with inhalation, one thing she does get right is that some essential oils “can cause seizures in children and people with pre-existing conditions.” I thoroughly explain this risk and the mechanisms in my book Medicinal Essential Oils. But, people with seizure disorders and other sensitivities also need to be cautious with other triggers such as alcohol, flashing lights, herbs, and even stress, tiredness, and weather changes.

The next contention is that diluting (she calls it “cutting”) an oil doesn’t offer protection from essential oils that she calls “poison.” She even refers to and attacks a basic principle of toxicology proposed by Paracelsus over 500 years ago, and still used today, that “the dose makes the poison.”  This criticism of dosage ignores the fact that virtually all chemicals—remember all things are made of chemicals—can be toxic, even water and oxygen, if too much is ingested or absorbed into the body. The toxicity depends on multiple factors, including how much of the substance a person is exposed to, the duration of the exposure, route of exposure, and the chemical itself. Dilution has been a best practice and safe way to use essential oils topically for centuries. (Reference)

In reality, modern science can adjust Paracelsus’s statement with a deeper understanding that dosage and concentration determine whether a metabolic pathway is disrupted. Chemicals affect a broad range of molecular cascades and molecular pathways are sensitive to different amounts of a compound. Indeed, this principle guides dosing for efficacy as well, not just safety. You must be exposed to the right amount of a chemical to experience a therapeutic effect, and this is called the therapeutic window—an amount that produces a desired effect without causing harm. The therapeutic window has been defined for many essential oils through clinical research and years of use. (Reference) (Reference) (Reference)

She closes with a definitive statement that she will “never use them in any of [her] offerings, [and does] not allow them in [her] home.” She also uses the argument that essential oils don’t carry the healing power of the entire plant, something I discussed in a short video here. The fact is that essential oils are natural complex substances from a dozen to hundreds of constituents that produce synergistic, additive, and antagonistic (buffering) effects within a single essential oil.

Another part of her closing argument states that “plants deserve our respect, you see it is they who are the real healers, not the humans who wield them.” This is utterly false! The human body is divinely designed to maintain a state of homeostasis with multiple systems and pathways to do so and ultimately it is the healer. Herbs, essential oils, food, physical activity, sleep, stress, and other factors influence the body’s ability to perform its healing functions, they do not directly heal the body.

As a last thought, chemistry and purity directly affect safety and efficacy. Since it is estimated that approximately 80 percent of essential oils commercially available are adulterated or poor quality, this can adversely affect the safety and therapeutic activity of essential oils. (Reference) Synthetic chemicals can affect human health in different ways than their natural counterparts because of their different enantiomeric ratios. Synthetic linalyl acetate and linalool are not the same as natural linalyl acetate and linalool! Authentic lavender oil contains 99 percent (4R)-(–)-linalyl acetate and 1 percent (4S)-(+)-linalyl acetate, as well as from 5–15 percent (4S)-(+)-linalool. Above 15 percent (4S)-(+)-linalool is a telltale sign of the addition of synthetic linalool because it has an enantiomeric ratio of 50 percent (4R)-(–)-linalool and 50 percent (4S)-(+)-linalool. Synthesizing chemicals in a lab does not produce identical chemicals as those naturally produced by plants.

While I totally respect her decision not to use essential oils, what I take exception to is her determined attempt to sway others to her way of thinking based on flawed arguments and exaggerated contentions. I have studied essential oils for more than 12,000 hours and you would be hard-pressed to find a person who has read more scientific studies on essential oils than me. Moreover, it could be argued that I have published the most evidence-based books on essential oils in the twenty-first century based on books, pages, and number of citations in these books. I have found essential oils extremely useful, safe, and therapeutic.

I also value and use herbs, both whole and standardized, for my own well-being. Both have a place in your natural wellness toolbox, and I urge you to learn how to use both. That’s why I wrote a large volume on the use of medicinal herbs, dietary supplements, and nutraceuticals for wellness along with my essential oil books. If they both have value, one must ask why herbalists continue to attempt to vilify essential oils. Ultimately, Ms. Graham’s allegations can be summed up as zealous opinions and feelings, not facts. Yet, her book and blog are excellent reminders that you should follow experts that have spent thousands of hours studying essential oils, rather than surrender critical thinking and reason to inflammatory words intended to incite hysteria and uphold the producer’s entrenched and outdated paradigm.