Talk:Essential oil/Archive 2

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 September 2018 and 10 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jgryka.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment

 * Please don't use Wikipedia for practicing essays and promoting urban myths, such as in this edit, which was poorly sourced and written. Read WP:MOS for the style needed, and WP:MEDRS for sourcing any content related to human health. Zefr (talk) 00:24, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

EOs pharmaceutical and biological properties
I tried to highlight the pharmaceutical and biological properties of EOs by citing this article: "A status review on the medicinal properties of essential oils", but my changes got reverted because I don't cite my sources. This is obviously false so what happened here? Why is this article a reliable source but not mine? Both are from sciencedirect.com, both are published by Elsevier, neither of them is part of the Abridged Index Medicus. The article I have cited is even more cited, 843 citations according to google scholar. So either I'm missing something, either someone is pushing his own agenda on this page. We can find an older review (2008) about the biological effects of essential oils here in which we can read "The cytotoxic capacity of the essential oils based on a prooxidant activity can make them excellent antiseptic and antimicrobial agents for personal use, i.e. for purifying air, personal hygiene, or even internal use via oral consumption, and for insecticidal use for the preservation of crops or food stocks." among other claims of pharmaceutical and biological properties. With more than 7000 citations, for anyone familiar with scientific publications, this is a lot, even for a review. Also, I'm troubled by the sentence "there is not sufficient evidence that essential oils can effectively treat any condition", the article cited talks about aromatherapy, not directly essential oils. I've read the article and nowhere we can read that EOs are unable to effectively treat conditions, only that there isn't any reliable proof that aromatherapy can. Aromatherapy certainly uses EOs, but different usage can lead to different results, and claiming EOs can't effectively treat conditions from this article is pure extrapolation. François Mentec (talk) 08:18, 10 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The journal, Industrial Crops and Products, is not a WP:MEDRS source, and is unreliable for content addressing human diseases or therapies. There are no MEDRS-quality sources supporting the use of essential oils with any confirmed biological properties as topical medications or prescription drugs, but rather are considered as potential poisons when used topically or orally. Sources from traditional medicine practices or publications are quackery. WP:BURDEN states that article content should be supported by a compelling review source, but there are no high-quality sources for use of essential oils in human medicine. The section on aromatherapy is accurate as stated. Zefr (talk) 16:35, 10 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Even if the primary focus of the journal isn't medicine, I expect the article would have been taken down if it contained false/misleading information considering it has been cited hundreds or even thousands of times. But I understand the caution.
 * Is the "Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine" considered MEDRS? Because this review also state that EOs possess various biological effects: "EOs have a variety of effects on human health. As it has been demonstrated in many studies, these oils have many psychological effects such as reducing anxiety, treating depression, and even aid with falling asleep. Additionally, they have also been shown to possess antimicrobial, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties and used as an alternative to synthetic insect repellents. As there are many proven health benefits to essential oils, there are also adverse effects.". Among their citations we can find this one which studied the "Effectiveness of aroma massage on advanced cancer patients with constipation" which was published in a medical journal: "Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice", and concluded: "The score of the constipation assessment scale of the aroma massage group was significantly lower than the control group. Apart from the improvement in bowel movements, the results showed significantly improved quality of life in physical and support domains of the aroma massage group.". Actually, after further reading it doesn't seem to be a reliable source: there is only a dozen of patients in each group, and the level of constipation of the "aroma massage group" is similar to the one of the "plain massage group", pardon my language, but I find it fucked up they only compare to the "control group" in the result section. So even in a medical journal we can find misleading publications, guess I learned something about scientific publications today. I'll continue to go through the sources of the Yale publication later and come back if I find anything more reliable/interesting.
 * I noticed the sources 3 and 24 in the EO article are the same, and I'm skeptical regarding the use of "Actions and Uses of Drugs" as a source since it's almost 60 years old, doesn't seem to be peer-reviewed, and cannot be accessed online (or at least I haven't found how). François Mentec (talk) 08:27, 12 August 2021 (UTC)
 * All of the studies reviewed in this pubication are from laboratory research or primary studies in humans, and so do not represent a WP:MEDRS review and carry no substance on effects in humans. The journal "Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice" is a low-quality alternative medicine journal with a miniscule impact factor (1.7) indicating weak acceptance in academic medicine. Zefr (talk) 12:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)