Plant compounds may be better than current antibiotics at treating persistent Lyme bacteria

Oils from garlic and several other common herbs and medicinal plants show strong activity against the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, according to a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. These oils may be especially useful in alleviating Lyme symptoms that persist despite standard antibiotic treatment, the study also suggests.

The study, published October 16 in the journal Antibiotics, included lab-dish tests of 35 essential oils–oils that are pressed from plants or their fruits and contain the plant’s main fragrance, or “essence.” The Bloomberg School researchers found that 10 of these, including oils from garlic cloves, myrrh trees, thyme leaves, cinnamon bark, allspice berries and cumin seeds, showed strong killing activity against dormant and slow-growing “persister” forms of the Lyme disease bacterium.

“We found that these essential oils were even better at killing the ‘persister’ forms of Lyme bacteria than standard Lyme antibiotics,” says study senior author Ying Zhang, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Bloomberg School.

There are an estimated 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year in the United States. Standard treatment with doxycycline or an alternative antibiotic for a few weeks usually clears the infection and resolves symptoms. However, about 10 to 20 percent of patients report persistent symptoms including fatigue and joint pain–often termed “persistent Lyme infection” or “post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome” (PTLDS) that in some cases can last for months or years.

The cause of this lingering syndrome isn’t known. But it is known that cultures of Lyme disease bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, can enter a so-called stationary phase in which many of the cells divide slowly or not at all. The slow-dividing or dormant cells are “persister” cells, which can form naturally under nutrient starvation or stress conditions, and are more resistant to antibiotics. Some researchers have sought other drugs or medicinal compounds that can kill persister Lyme bacteria in the hope that these compounds can be used to treat people with persistent Lyme symptoms.

More...

Lots of promising news...hope it keeps coming. garlic and others seem so good for various ailments.

i thought tho through the distillation process, that garlic oil had less allicin than garlic capsules. Also, from a few other studies i saw with garlic oil related to other infections, it seemed other compounds in garlic oil maybe whats relevant for potent activity. not sure if anyone else observed that in their research.

I've been saying this for a while now. It's the polyphenols. Thanks for posting.

Is essential garlic oil something you can buy? What about eating garlic cloves, which some people do?

Lapis_29 said...


https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_11?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=garlic+essential+oil&sprefix=garlic+esse%2caps%2c172&crid=1omqjaxhopiky

yes you can buy it just be aware the scent is VERY strong!

nothing wrong with eating garlic but the oil is highly concentrated and has the killer compounds and is much more effective at killing the bugs than the whole plant is

How do you take the essential oils?

I make fire cider regularly.

Add fresh diced: turmeric, garlic, ginger to a jar of apple cider vinegar. Add horseradish and hot peppers to taste.

I like to add it at the end of cooking and serve.

I take 9 garlic allicin pills a day and 2 cinnamon pills so it is pleasant to see these were mentioned on this post. Perhaps I should take more cinnamon.

Twinkle said...

Somebody said...
One question I have with EOs, how well distributed throughout the body are they when ingested? would it be possible to create more efficient delivery mechanisms of the compounds to target the pathogens? I'm guessing this is very possible but it would take a bit of research and investment $ to develop the therapeutics. Maybe EOs work well enough as is... I don't know. They were effective for me but only up to a point, then again I believe borrelia is less of an issue for me than babesia. Would be exciting to see studies like this in regards to the various coinfections.

You might want to look into the work of GREG LEE who has written extensively on EO's for Lyme and co's and liposomals. If you look it up you will find instructions on how to make your own EO liposomals, I do not believe Greg gives those, find them elsewhere

for babesia here is a study which shows the essential oils of savory and thymol killed malaria, whichh is similar to babesia. so you might want to try that. Thymol is founds in multiple essential oils including thyme

Somebody said...
The essential oil of savory, rich in thymol, was the most effective against P. falciparum with an inhibitory activity independent from the time of collection (IC50 17–26 μg/ml on D10 and 9–11 μg/ml on W2). Upon fractionation, fraction 1 was enriched in mono-sesquiterpenoid hydrocarbons; fraction 2 in thymol (73-83%); and fraction 3 contained thymol, carvacrol and terpinen-4-ol, with a different composition depending on the time of collection. Thymol-enriched fractions were the most active on both strains (IC50 20–22 μg/ml on D10 and 8–10 μg/ml on W2) and thymol was confirmed as mainly responsible for this activity (IC50 19.7± 3.0 and 10.6 ± 2.0 μg/ml on D10 and W2, respectively). The essential oil of S. thymbra L. showed also larvicidal and adulticidal activities. The larvicidal activity, expressed as LC50, was 0.15 ± 0.002; 0.21 ± 0.13; and 0.15 ± 0.09 μg/ml (mean ± sd) depending on the time of collection: before, during and after flowering, respectively.

https://malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2875-11-219

KentuckyOConnor said...
im interested in the essential oils.. how do you even go about treating with them?

There are a couple of essential oil lyme groups on facebook. Might be worth checking out to see how people treat the infections with the oils. There isn't one way to do it, but like a lot of therapies best to start slow and low with treatment.

I used some of tickslayer's essential oil combos for the infections. Makes it pretty easy because the combos are made for specific issues (lyme, fungus, parasite).

astroman said...
Hopped on this thread a little late, but yes, I get herbs, just not familiar with the essential oil form.

I thought essential oils are just for infusers????????????

The question of how to take orally was not clearly answered. What is the simple answer without me researching?

Ive taken garlic gels forever. Past lyme and I continue to need to stay on top of gut health for candida and maybe sibo, which similar plant/herbs are used.

thanks

oral use of EO's is abit controversial. I have taken them and they have really helped. Personally I only use the highest quality internally, such as 'Young living' brand which is great. Dont take the cheap stuff internally.

Like I said earlier put a few drops of EO on a spooful of coconut oil, mix it around and down the hatch. Also inhaled via a nebulizer is a great way to treat the lungs, nasal passages and throat.
Great for things like Myco P.

and transdermally by applying to skin then applying DMSO on top of that. But you cant apply 100% pure EO to the skin, it must be dilluted in a carrier oil

taking essential oil capsules- didnt know about that.

So its just more concentrated than gel tabs then. Wonder if more gel tabs would do the same?

I tried orange peel extract orally once.......harsh on the throat, stuck to D-limonene gels after that mistake.

General PSA: Please please research thoroughly before taking EOs internally, and know that many MLM sellers are not well educated on their use.

For example, be aware that oil of oregano is not the same as oregano essential oil, and some articles use the unclear term "oregano oil."

For those on Facebook, there is a group called Using Essential Oils Safely.

I tried peppermint oil capsules. They pretty much did nothing. I also tried taking a teaspoonful of whole cloves each day instead of taking clove oil. What did it do? Nothing. But it gave me a pretty bad case of digestive upset. Oregano oil maybe helped me the most, but after taking it for a few months, I stopped seeing any benefits. I'm kind of skeptical about essential oils..

I saw the most benefit from putting clove oil on my neck, when my neck starts to get stiff.