Essential Oils: Science or Snake Oil?

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Science, Education, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 11.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2018

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Essential Oils - and their claims - are huge right now. But is it all hype, or is there something special about these little brown bottles? To get to the bottom of it, we dig through the studies and speak to cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Rachel Herz and psychologist Prof. Mark Moss. Check out the full transcript here: http://bit.ly/2PyEsKy Selected references: Rachel Herz’s books: Why You Eat What You Eat & The Scent of DesireA review of the benefits of peppermint tea and oil A critical review of the clinical trials Mark’s two studies showing that rosemary can enhance memoryThe experiment where lavender had different effects depending on what the people expected it to do Credits: This episode was produced by Meryl Horn, with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler and Odelia Rubin. Our senior producer is Kaitlyn Sawrey. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell and Caitlin Kenney. Fact checking by Michelle Harris and Rose Rimler. Mix and sound design by Emma Munger. Music by Emma Munger and Bobby Lord. A huge thanks to all the researchers we got in touch with for this episode - including Ryan Dalton, Elaine Elisabetsky, Belinda Hornby, Diane McKay, and Thomas Cleland. Also thanks to the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Vs from Gimlet Media.
0:05.1	This is the show that pits facts against fragrances.
0:08.8	On today's show, Essential Oils.
0:13.7	This is our most requested show yet.
0:16.0	You guys really want to know if there is good science behind Essential Oils.
0:20.6	So on today's show, we're going to find out if they make any sense.
0:26.4	Get it?
0:33.9	Essential Oils are really having a moment right now.
0:37.4	This industry is worth billions of dollars.
0:40.7	In fact, as we're recording this episode, Dotera, which is the big gunner in this space,
0:45.8	is throwing its annual convention, which 30,000 people are attending.
0:51.7	So yeah, this is huge.
0:55.8	So we sent our senior producer, Caitlin Sori, to sniff out the Essential Oils scene.
1:01.3	Really defuse the situation.
1:04.4	Hi, Wendy.
1:05.2	Hi, Caitlin.
1:06.4	Yeah, I went on an Essential Oil Adventure, probably the nicest smelling trip I've been on as a reporter.
1:13.2	Ooh.
1:14.0	So I went to this store in Manhattan and they have these Essential Oil 101 nights
1:18.5	where they teach new people about Essential Oils and I was like,
1:21.1	this could be a really good place to start.
1:24.1	Right now I'm smelling the Manhattan musk.
	...

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