Smelling citrus scent cures depression in 75% of study participants
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One of the coolest studies I've seen in a long time.
They gave 12 depressed people a custom mix of certain oils (mostly lemon, but also orange and bergamot) and put it in their room, using a fan for circulation of the scent.
They were all on antidepressants.They also had 8 depressed people who did not receive the scent as a control group, who were also on antidepressants.
At the end of the study 9/12 patients in the citrus scent group were off their antidepressants!
0 of the control people were able to do that.
The 3 remaining people in the citrus group were able to drastically reduce their antidepressant dosage.
It took 4-11 weeks for their depression to be in remission.The patients inhaling citrus scent presented lower cortisol values, but also lower dopamine values. That speaks for increased GABAergic tone, since GABA reduces cortisol and dopamine.
Coincidentally lemon and orange oil consist of limonene to a large degree, which has been shown to lower cortisol and serotonin and increase GABA so that might be the active ingredient. Or at least one of them.Dare to think.
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Amazing!
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How they created the oil:
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@Mauritio said in Smelling citrus scent cures depression in 75% of study participants:
Coincidentally lemon and orange oil consist of limonene to a large degree
Here's a short list of limonenes benefits:
D-Limonene
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Increases brain GABA + lowers serotonin
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Reduces endotoxin and obesity in animal studies
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Increases UCP2
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Anti-viral, anti- bacterial, anti-fungal
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Anti-fibrotic
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Increases bile acids
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Increases vitamin C (up to 15 times in one study)
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Increases Testosterone (slightly) and increases androgen receptor expression
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Has Pregnancy supporting effects
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i sometimes leave lemon and orange peels around
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@sushi_is_cringe same. sometimes I put them on the heater which spreads the scent.
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@Mauritio ,
Notwithstanding a beneficial role of fragrances on nervous and immune, this s study appears a bit weak as the authors point out themselves in the end of the Discussion section:
"In a future study, however, the AD [anti-depressant] group should be controlled by a separate group in which the dose of antidepressants should be halved unless the subjects in the CF [citrus fragrance] group completely discontinue antidepressants simultaneously with the use of citrus fragrance."A problem, as I see it, is that the CF group was given a choice on how they want their dose to be reduced, which not necessarily depended on the assessed depression levels.
Also I could not find in the paper for how long the fragrance was applied. Post-assessments show only the number of weeks after the fragrance application.
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@Lejeboca I assume that these problems with the paper are not due to authors' sloppiness or ineptitude but rather to the restriction in working with human subjects.
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@Lejeboca Indeed, the paper by the subset of these authors seems to me very good:
Immunological and behavioral effects of fragrance in mice"In this study, the stress induced by exposure to high pressure was found to involve thymic involution and reduce PFC [plaque-forming cells] production via the activation of suppressor T cells in mice. The results showed that this response to stress involving thymic involution was blocked by the exposure to fragrance."
"In order to evaluate the behavioral change induced by stress, spontaneous running activity was measured by a photocell counter. Running activity in mice was enhanced by high pressure stress, however, the enhancement of running activity was reduced by exposure to the fragrance (Figure 6)."
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@Mauritio Whenever I go for a walk and see a pine tree or pine shrug, I pick of some of the needles, crush them between my fingers and smell it as I walk.
Probably the same effect.
In time there is life but no knowledge; outside time there is knowledge but no life
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Any practical experiments we can run on this subject?
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@Lejeboca said in Smelling citrus scent cures depression in 75% of study participants:
which not necessarily depended on the assessed depression levels.
What else would it depend on? The limiting factor for lowering your AD dose is if youre well enough to handle it. So if their depression didn't get better, they wouldn't have been able to reduce their dosage. As can be seen by the 3 individuals, that weren't well enough to completely come off AD's, so they didn't.
@Lejeboca said in Smelling citrus scent cures depression in 75% of study participants:
Also I could not find in the paper for how long the fragrance was applied. Post-assessments show only the number of weeks after the fragrance application.
It says it took 4-11 weeks to work, that's all I need to know.
Dare to think.
My X:
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@jamezb46 good point. I love the smell of pine trees, too.
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@Gaston Well how about smelling citrus scent?:D
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I already see Peaters running around with brown paper bags full of orange and lemon peel, which they sniff like people used to do with glue. Positive side effect: You can use the paper bag for bag rebreathing afterwards.
It smells pretty decent though.
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@Mauritio said in Smelling citrus scent cures depression in 75% of study participants:
What else would it depend on?
For example, fear of getting off meds.
@Mauritio said in Smelling citrus scent cures depression in 75% of study participants:
It says it took 4-11 weeks to work, that's all I need to know.
4-11 weeks after the use of fragrance lasting for how long?
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Im looking into the effects of cedar and pine trees and their essential oils, since I'm thinking about getting a new bed and want the most "pro-metabolic" wood. Especially a-pinene seems to have some interesting properties.
1.α-Pinene, a Major Constituent of Pine Tree Oils, Enhances Non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep in Mice through GABAA-benzodiazepine Receptors
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27573669/2."3-Carene, a Phytoncide from Pine Tree Has a Sleep-enhancing Effect by Targeting the GABAA-benzodiazepine Receptors"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31698551/2."In human studies, Tsunetsugu et al. [12] investigated the effects of α-pinene on 15 male college students. They found that olfactory stimulation with α-pinene, which was rated as a “slight smell”, decreased systolic blood pressure and was assessed as “slightly comfortable” in the subjective evaluation [12]. "
https://jwoodscience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s10086-016-1576-1#ref-CR103."Olfactory stimulation by α-pinene significantly increased the HF component of HRV, which is associated with parasympathetic nervous activity, and significantly decreased heart rate. These findings indicate that olfactory stimulation by α-pinene induces physiological relaxation."
https://jwoodscience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1007/s10086-016-1576-1#ref-CR104." The results showed that alpha-pinene significantly reduced cerebral edema and infarct size, improved neurobehavioral function, and restored antioxidant enzyme activity to normal levels while decreasing levels of inflammatory factors in the brain15."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-56756-1#:~:text=The results showed that alpha,factors in the brain15.5.Forest bathing enhances human natural killer activity and expression of anti-cancer proteins
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17903349/6.Stone pine beds increased sleep quality ,parasympathetic regeneration and decreased heart rate in this study .
https://humanresearch.at/newwebcontent/human-research/projects/stone-pine/?lang=en7."Additionally, it was found that α-pinene had a decreasing effect on the expression of COX-1 protein in the spinal cord. Also, α-pinene 5 or 10 mg/kg caused a decrease of TNF-α, IL-1β, and MDA and an increase of SOD, GSH, and CAT at the formalin injection site. The study discovered that doses of 5 or 10 mg/ml of α-pinene can effectively relieve nociceptive response in the formalin test."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37793595/Dare to think.
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@Luke CO2 citrus huffing while basking in my red chicken lamp-lit sauna applying magnesium lotion while drinking a gallon of honey. This is the way to health.
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Cinnamon smell for the win.
"The strategy of using flavor/fragrances compositions such as cinnamon flavor and cinnamon mint may be useful to protect widespread of SARS-CoV-2 in their daily lives."
