Aromatherapy Improves Emotional State, But Doesn't Improve Health

Aromatherapy

Researchers from Ohio State University studied the most popular aromatherapy scents to find out if it improves health or no.

Scientists examined 56 healthy volunteers, who passed full medical exam. Some of these people have had taken aromatherapy sessions before and think it really helps. Some of them did not have any idea if it is useful or no. Volunteers took three sessions of aromatherapy with the most popular aromatherapy scents lemon and lavender, and just distilled water.

Volunteers were being checked for blood pressure, heart rate and regular blood tests. By the end of the last session they also filled out questioners to estimate mood and stress situation.

Blood tests were checked for immune and endocrine system to see if there is any improvement in overall health state, but there was no. Volunteers only showed a little positive change in mood.

Kiecolt-Glaser from Ohio State University said: "Keep in mind that a lot of things have to take place for that healing process to succeed. We measured a lot of complex physiological interactions instead of just a single marker, and still we saw no positive effect"

Researchers concluded that lemon scent showed mood improvement, lavender scent did not show any changes, and distilled water showed less improvement than lemon and a little more improvement than lavender. The most common thing in aromatherapy is found to be placebo effect, when people just relax and think that therapy will heal. However, it did not show any medical health improvement, such as skin wound healing and pain control.