Study: Essential Oils From Garlic, Other Herbs And Spices Kill Lyme Disease Bacteria
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — A laboratory study from the Bloomberg School at Johns Hopkins University found that oils from garlic and several other common herbs and medicinal plants could be useful in alleviating Lyme Disease symptoms.
The study, published Oct. 16, suggested that the oils treated symptoms that persisted despite antibiotic treatment.
Researchers from The Bloomberg School found that of 35 essential oils pressed from plants or their fruits, such as garlic cloves, myrrh trees, thyme leaves, allspice berries, and cumin seeds, 10 of them showed strong effectiveness against dormant and slow-growing "persister" forms of the Lyme disease bacterium.
There are 300,000 new cases estimated to occur in the U.S. each year. While standard antibiotic treatment clears up the infection after a few weeks, 10-20 percent of patients report a "persistent Lyme infection" also known as "post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome" which can last for months or years.
Ying Zhang, the study's senior author and a professor at the Bloomberg School, and his team found that the essential oils successfully killed all stationary Lyme bacteria in their culture dishes in seven days and that no bacteria grew back after 21.
Follow @WJZ on Twitter and like WJZ-TV | CBS Baltimore on Facebook