Jordan Cool Greys Supporting Immunity from Influen

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the news of influenza is seen everywhere we turn, more and more people are seeking every available means to support their immune system and potentially prevent the infection by any number of serious viral contagions -- most notably these days is "Swine Flu", though there may be more in our future. Historically, essential oils have been used during major plagues as a means to prevent infection. Pictures can be found in natural medicine textbooks of medical practitioners wearing facemasks stuffed with cinnamon, cloves, sage and other botanicals to ward of illness. Today's leading professional aromatherapists also suggest the most important use of essential oils for humanity will be in the treatment and prevention of such infectious illnesses. Are essential oils a viable option as an alternative therapy for home use? Here's a look at the scientific research, as well as formulas and practices to make use of aromatic medicines.
Research on Essential Oils as AntiViral Agents
Over the last decade, laboratory researchers around the world have found many essential oils are capable of directly eradicating viruses. Further, they may even prevent viruses from moving between cells within the body and limiting the spread of infection. This is not an over-optimistic interpretation of the data by an essential oil proponent, but the actual conclusions of controlled research studies. Abstracts of all the research mentioned here can be found through pubmed.gov, the database maintained by the National Institute of Health and the US National Library of Medicine. If you wish, you can browse these results by entering search terms such as "essential oil virus", "antiviral essential oil", and more specifically "laurus nobilis SARS" (Laurus nobilis being Bay Laurel essential oil, and SARS a highly-infectious viral respiratory ailment). While there is not yet data where essential oils have been tested against Swine Flu and Avian Flu specifically, as we'll see there is every reason to believe the oils will be effective against these virus strains as well.
What Does the Data Mean?
An interpretation of the research can be summed up (and this is only one writer/scientist's interpretation) as this: MANY essential oils have antiviral activity,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], some oils more than others -- which oil eradicates what virus depends on the oil's natural chemical makeup AND the unique structure of the virus being tested. Finally that "whole" essential oils have a stronger effect than any single chemical component synthesized or extracted in a laboratory. A study in the August 2009 Journal of Phytotherapy Research performed by scientists in the Department of Virology at the University of Heidelberg,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych],[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], noted that several chemicals commonly found in natural essential oils exhibited antiviral activity -- being able to "reduce viral infectivity by greater than 96%". The oils studied were Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, and Thyme (chemotypes were not mentioned in the abstract), tested against HSV-1. The researchers also compared the individual chemical constituents of these oils with whole natural Tea Tree, and concluded the "constituents present in natural Tea Tree essential oil revealed a ten-fold higher selectivity index and a lower toxicity" than the isolated single chemicals.
Laurus Nobilis and SARS
Many of the studies utilize the Herpes Simplex Virus as a "test subject", because of the widespread prevalence of infection,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], along with the relative ease of testing. However, if one digs into the data, many papers present information relevant in in influenza pandemic. SARS 'Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome' is caused by the highly infectious SARS-CoV virus that made world-wide news in 2003. A study in the March 2008 Journal of Chemical Biodiversity noted Bay Laurel essential oil to have significant antiviral action against this virus. They'd also noted the natural constituents of this oil, which are also found in a great many other essential oils. This is why you'll see MANY essential oils noted as antivirals -- because many oils share sim