A very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

The rain continues to bucket down: daily we have to negotiate new floods on the way to work and my telephone has given up the unequal struggle of battling with flooding in the junction box. At least I am feeling a great deal better and sufficiently fit to download the House of Lords Report on Complementary and Alternative Medicine  [www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldsctech.htm] from the internet. Be prepared, there’s an awful lot of it!

Some will have undoubtedly read that their Lordships have recommended stronger regulations and better sources of independent information to guide people through the growing maze of complementary and alternative medicine and to protect the public from rogue practitioners.

With an estimated 5m patients spending a total of £1.8bn last year in fees to practitioners and buying retail items such as herbal medicines the inquiry chairman, Lord Walton of Detchant, said: It is difficult for members of the public to make informed choices about whether or how they should make use of complementary and alternative medicine. 

This raises significant issues of public health policy such as whether good structures of regulation to protect the public are in place; whether an evidence base has been accumulated and research is being carried out; whether there are adequate information sources on the subject; whether the practitioner’s training is adequate and what the prospects are for NHS provision of these treatments. To consider the issues, the House of Lords Select Committe on Science and Technology divided therapies into three categories.

The first group are the most organised professions.  Two of these, chiropractic and osteopathy, are already regulated by Acts of Parliament, and the Committee recommended that three others, acupuncture, herbal medicine and homeopathy, should also undergo statutory regulation. These are perceived as the ‘Big 5’ by most in CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine).

The second group contains therapies which are most often used to complement conventional medicine and do not purport to embrace diagnostic skills. It includes aromatherapy; the Alexander Technique; body work therapies, including massage; counselling; stress therapy; hypnotherapy; reflexology and probably shiatsu; meditation and healing.

The third group embraces those disciplines which purport to offer diagnostic information as well as treatment and which, in general, favour a philosophical approach and are indifferent to the scientific principles of conventional medicine, and through which various and disparate frameworks of disease causation and its management are proposed. These therapies can be split into two sub-groups.  Group 3a includes long-established and traditional systems of healthcare such as Ayurvedic medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine.  Group 3b covers other alternative disciplines which lack [in the Committe’s opinion] any credible evidence base such as crystal therapy, iridology, radionics, dowsing and kinesiology.

I could go on, and on, but may I suggest that you keep your eyes peeled for information and remain aware that, in the Committee’s opinion, many CAM therapies are based on theories about their modes of action that are not congruent with current scientific knowledge.....and therefore in recommending the regulation of training in CAM [the Committee] specifically exclude training in the asserted modes of action of many CAM therapies because regulation could lead to a misleading public perception of improved status.....CAM training courses vary unacceptably in content, depth and duration.....Only a concerted partnership between higher educational institutions and regulated professions as validating bodies will adequately ensure that any CAM practitioner is well trained.....The extent of training required will depend on how far a therapy claims to be independent of medical supervision and diagnosis.  There is much to read, and more to consider!
South Africa leads the way!
I’m very pleased to be able to report an epic milestone for complementary health care in our country, emailed Sandi Nye, National Chair of the Association of Aromatherapists South Africa (AOASA).  The Honourable State President, Thabo Mbeki, signed the 2nd, and final amendment Bill to the Chiropractors, Homeopaths and Allied Health Service Professions [CHAHSP] Act [B66B-2000-new Allied Health Act] today (29th November 2000).

Attached to her email was a copy of the presentation made by AOASA to the National Assembly Portfolio Committee on Health.  With Sandi’s permission, may I urge all to ask me for a copy: I would have thought it essential reading for all those concerned about the future of our own aromatherapy profession. Thanks Sandi, and very well done!

Manevoro Oil?!
Not widely known, and rarely offered in more than 10-kilo lots, Manevoro Oil is an essential oil, produced by steam distillation of a Madagascan herb of the genus Labiatae. Manevoro is a term which is native for “crocodile herb”. The plant grows wild in the shady forests of northwestern Madagascar and the off-shore island of Nossi-Be. The plant is not cultivated, and the author knows of no other place where this plant is to be found [Steffen Arctander 1961. Perfume and Flavor Materials of Natural Origin]. To one of my bent, such a comment is always going to be a challenge!

Manevoro?  Crocodile herb? There was no botanical name to assist me [a common fault with Arctander], except the vague hint that it was of the genus Labiatae.  I trawled every reference: not a thing.  In desperation, I took to the internet. Bingo! One reference, to an oil trader in North America.  My ‘mouse’ twitched manically.  Not widely known, and rarely offered...... I could not believe it: Arctander was beckoning me again!  Of course I drew another blank. By now I was beginning to think that Arctander might be having me on: and I still do!  Please let me know if I am wrongly maligning him.  

Language loss.
According to a WWF [www.panda.org] study, over the past 100 years some 600 languages have been lost and at present rates of destruction only 600 of the 6,000 languages remaining will still be spoken at the end of the present century.  This is troubling: 4,635 or two-thirds of the world’s 6,870 or so ethno-linguistic groups live in the 225 regions classified as of highest biological importance.

With the loss of language goes loss of ecological knowledge, built up over centuries and handed down orally through the generations.  This knowledge ranges from the medicinal properties of plants to experience of changing habitats and species adaptation.  The more biologically diverse the region, the more diverse its human societies.  Thus tropical forests, biologically the richest areas on earth containing 50-90 per cent of the world’s species, are also the most culturally diverse, with 42 per cent of the world’s ethno-linguistic groups. Thank goodness WWF is now helping groups to record and transmit traditional knowledge to younger generations.
Arizona anguish.
I’ve just returned from a holiday in Arizona, wrote Anne Faulds. Whilst there I searched for outlets for essential oils....The average store/restaurant/home in the USA smelt very nice....When I enquired how and what they used, essential oils were either unheard of or too expensive....I spent quite a while on Native American Reservations and herbs/oils were a big part of their history (indeed an essential part)....So what happened?

I fear that Anne might just have hit an essential oil wilderness: had she been in New Mexico she might have had better luck, as Jane Buckle used to hold regularly courses in Albuquerque. The use and knowledge of essential oils seem to be geographically sporadic in the United States: I know not why.  Any ideas?

As a teenager I was a keen student of the Native American Indian, being a member of the English Westerners’Society.  Although at that time I was probably more preoccupied with the products of Samuel Colt, I was fascinated by Indian tribes: Blackfoot, Cree, Crow, Iroquois, Kickapoo, Winnebago, Cheyenne, Comanche. Cherokee and Sioux. From memory, I would think that Anne was in Papago or Hopi territory, or was it Navaho or Paiute? 

I recollect that the Hopis and Papagos used the roots of wild rhubarb (Rumex hymenosepalus) to treat colds and sore throats. Interestingly, more recently, wild rhubarb has been marketed as wild red American ginseng or wild red desert ginseng, although it does not contain any of the active panaxoside-like saponin glycosides responsible for ginseng’s physiological activities.  In fact they are not even botanically related [Tyler, Varro E. 1981. The Honest Herbal]. However it is worth noting that a policy adopted by the American Herb Trade Association in 1979 stated that wild rhubarb should not be labelled “ginseng”.  That said, did they use essential oils?

Based upon my own research, I am not at all convinced that essential oils per se were ever used. Certainly they were aware that plants contained volatile substances, but did they extract them? I think not. The use of herbs is an entirely different matter, and well documented, but it should be remembered that medicinal plants were only one part of the healing ceremonies, which included ritual songs, drumming and prayer as well.

A possible answer?
So what happened? Back in 1932, Ales Hrdlicka, a medical doctor and physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian, made the point: They knew poisons, emitics, cathartics, antifebriles, tonics, narcotics, haemostatics, cleansing solutions, healing gums and powders.....They employed massage, pressure, scarification, cauterization, bandaging, splints, sucking, enemas, cutting, scraping, and suturing.....But whenever the cause of a complaint was obscure, or when the complaint was proving dangerous and all ordinary aid had failed, particularly if this was in a hitherto healthy adult - then their minds turned to the supernatural.

I wonder if diseases introduced from Europe did not confound them: how would the supernatural, or medicinal plants for that matter, have coped with smallpox or venereal disease? I suspect that medicine men quickly lost their “magic”in the face of such adversity, and traditional remedies were cast aside in favour of “white man’s” medicine.  How many can recollect images of quack doctors peddling their wares through the Old West?

A loaded question?
What makes an essential oil accepted for use in aromatherapy and what, if any, trial processes [clinical trials, etc.] does it have to go through before being passed and acceptable, and who approves it? I was asked.

I am always a little wary about such questions, particularly if posed by medical or academic institutions. So long as it remains unwise to say officially that essential oils are “medicinal by function” I can only surmise that historic use plays an important part in any decision, undoubtedly bolstered by the words of contemporary authors and teachers.

Dr. Jean Valnet was certainly aware of the pharmacological effects of essential oils, and clinical knowledge has been developed by Franchomme, Penoel, Belaiche and others, but aromatherapy in the UK remains a complementary rather than an alternative medicine.  Although the chemistry of essential oils is becoming better understood, and more widely taught, clinical trials are few and there is little funding for them and, therefore, proof of efficacy is largely anecdotal.

However it would be incorrect to assume that aromatherapists do not know what they are doing; they do, and with good effect.  In former times they might have been considered traditional healers and, like traditional healers, it is only now that their practice is coming under scrutiny.

I might think that I know what makes an oil suitable for aromatherapy, and test it accordingly, and I might also have more than a passing knowledge, based upon scientific research, of its potential efficacy, but I cannot assay its holism.  Until science can do that, I would have thought that the practitioner will remain the final arbiter.

Dyeing to make it!
According to the market research company Datamonitor [Professional Haircare report] perms are out, but colouring is in: and the words “I want to look like that”are heard more often as customers ask for the styles adopted by celebrities.

As one who spends only the occasional fiver on tonsorial care, I was interested to learn that the average spend per salon visit in London is currently £35 [honestly I thought that it would be more], predicted to increase to £56 over the next five years, and in New York the average spend is £31 which is predicted to go to £45.  Be these facts correct, Chipping Norton seems very expensive [according to Rebecca] as it offers neither in-salon cafes or televisions.  Lap-top computers with internet access? Dream on!

Datamonitor predicts that as the number of celebrity-based hair magazines increases [are there such journals?] and global access to satellite television grows, hairstyle fashions will become more uniform around the world [just like the army?].  This may be slower to affect men than women [thank goodness].  Apparently men are still reluctant to leave the barber shop and go to a hair salon, but Datamonitor thinks this will change as part of men’s increasing interest in “general grooming” [that military theme again!].

Carnation considered.
Carnation, like several exotic florals, is one of those oils and absolutes about which I am never entirely sure: real deal or sophisticated fraud?

Traditionally Dianthus caryophyllus L. (fam. Caryophyllaceae), the common garden carnation, was cultivated on the French Riviera, and on the Italian Riviera, chiefly for the cut flower trade. Surplus flowers which could not be sold to florists, particularly at the end of the flowering season in June, were occasionally taken to Grasse and submitted to extraction with volatile solvents, yielding the so-called concrete and absolute of carnation. Steam distillation of the flowers gave such a poor yield of oil that the process was not used.  The highest yield of flower oil was obtained from carnations that had been  cut after a period of ample sunshine.  The most common varieties, particularly those of lightest colour, yielded the most oil. Today most of our carnation absolute comes from Egypt.

Carnation is an olive green to green or orange-brown, viscous liquid of very sweet, honeylike, somewhat herbaceous, heavy and tenacious fragrance [so the books say], reminiscent of the odour of the live flowers only to a certain degree and only in high dilutions (5% or weaker).  The yield of absolute from concrete is very small (about 10% to 25%), and since the yield of the concrete itself is also poor (0.2 to 0.3% of the weight of the flowers), the production of Carnation Absolute is a costly one.

Consequently, adulteration occurs quite frequently, mainly in the form of “cutting”, and it can be difficult to detect.  Synthetic materials such as isoeugenol, methyl eugenol, benzyl benzoate, methyl salicylate, etc., or small amounts of immortelle absolute, flouve oil, clove bud absolute, etc. can be added, and these can make the odour of  this “sophisticated” absolute even more similar to that of the flower.

In aromatherapy, it is suggested that carnation absolute is useful for respiratory muscle spasms, indigestion, and stress-related disorders and anxiety. On a more ethereal level, Valerie Ann Worwood writes much in The Fragrant Heavens and The Fragrant Mind. Worth reading.

Hydrosols discussed.
The distinguished American author Jeanne Rose in her major field guide to 375 Essential Oils and Hydrosols suggests that....

Hydrosols are the real aromatherapy. They can be considered the homoeopathy of aromatherapy; as herbs are to homoeopathy, so are essential oils to hydrosols. Hydrosols represent the true synergy of herbalism and aromatherapy, hydrosols are the pure natural water that is produced during the distillation process.

These hydrosols are not simply perfumed sprays, nor are they water to which droplets of essential oil have been added. They are a separate and natural product of the distillation process and can be termed 100% distilled non-alcoholic distillates.  They can not be manufactured synthetically in the laboratory [some would not agree with this]. A hydrosol has to be produced during the distillation process.

When plants or flowers are put in the still or distillation tank, they are subjected to either boiling water, or steam or both. The basic purpose of distillation is the separation of a liquid or solid from another liquid or solid by vaporisation followed by condensation. The process can be performed at atmospheric pressure or reduced pressure, the latter being preferred for thermally unstable distillates.

In plant material the essential oils are stored in glandular hairs on the epidermis, oil tubes in the pericarp or isolated oil cells in the plant tissue. The basic distillation process for the extraction of essential oils from plant material involves co-distillation with steam.  The steam hits the plant, softens the scent cells and the essential oil that is contained within is released as vapour. This essential oil vapour mixes with the steam and is only separated again when the steam cools in the condensing tank. As the steam cools, the essential oil separates from the steam (now as cooled water) and floats to the surface and, because most essential oils are less dense than water, separates out as an upper layer on the water.  The water can then be returned to the still.  Such waters are called hydrosols, or sometimes hydrolats.

Dr. Kurt Schnaubelt, in his book Medical Aromatherapy, comments that....
Aromatic hydrosols contain the water soluble, volatile components of the plant that often gives them a fragrance quite like the essential oil but not as strong. Their composition is different from that of the essential oil: richer in water-compatible components and free of lipophilic substances such as terpene hydrocarbons.  This means highly tolerable, antiinflammative, and antiseptic substances are found in aromatic hydrosols.

Examining hydrosols.
The basic task of monitoring hydrosols involves the detection of the organic components in the water, elucidating their identity and, if required, measuring their concentration.  Hydrosols can be injected directly onto a gas chromatography (GC) column but this is not the preferred method. Some deactivation of the column can occur and water does not behave as an “ideal”solvent. However, if the concentration of the components in the water are at the 2-3% level then direct injection may produce satisfactory results.  More often than not it is necessary to “concentrate”the components of interest by some method of enrichment or extraction.  The most commonly used method of extraction is liquid-liquid. Dr. Bill Morden, a Mass Spectrometrist for more than 30 years, explains....

Liquid-Liquid Extraction.
In its simplest form extraction may be performed by shaking the hydrosol with an organic solvent such as hexane, in a separating funnel.  Once the water and solvent have separated the solvent containing the organic components may be run off, concentrated and analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).  Liquid-liquid extraction can be time consuming and often involves the use of toxic solvents. Moreover, the separation of the aqueous and organic phases can be prone to emulsion formation, a problem prone to manual separation methods. Because the success of liquid-liquid extraction depends on the organics in the aqueous phase being more soluble in the solvent, the choice of solvent can be problematic.

Solid Phase Extraction.
Solid phase extraction can be used to remove organics from water.  The principle is based on partitioning. The hydrosol is passed through a sorbent bed or membrane to retain the organics which are simply removed by washing with an organic solvent like dichloromethane. Large volumes can be handled by relatively small amounts of sorbent, which in turn require only small amounts of solvents for extraction obviating the need for solvent concentration. The method is suitable for components with low, medium or high polarities depending on the sorbent used, so it may be necessary to pass the hydrosol through sorbent beds to extract the components of different polarities.  The resultant solvent washings are combined, concentrated if necessary and analysed by GC-MS.
Liquid-Solid Partitioning.
Liquid-solid partitioning, also known as solid-phase partitioning, is particularly suited to hydrosols rich in polar components.  The hydrosols are passed through specially treated resin beads which “trap”the organic components.  The resin is dried and the trapped components are eluted with an organic solvent, concentrated and analysed by GC-MS. More recently, the technique has been adapted so that the trapped components can be eluted by thermal desorption directly into a special inlet on the GC-MS system thus ensuring the highest degree of sample enrichment.

Purge and Trap.
This technique is of particular use in the extraction of non-polar components from a hydrosol.  An inert gas, such as helium, is bubbled from a fine sinter through the hydrosol in a sealed system causing the purgeable organics to move from the aqueous phase into the gas phase. The helium organic vapours are passed through a tube containing an adsorbent which traps out the organic compounds. The tube containing the trapped compounds is subjected to rapid heating which desorbs them from the adsorbent. Since the desorption takes between 1-5 minutes the compounds are recondensed by cryogenics before being flash heated into the inlet of the GC-MS for analysis. Purge and trap is suitable for the extraction of compounds with a wide range of polarities but is particularly useful for non-polar compounds.

Static and Dynamic Headspace Extraction.
In static headspace extraction the hydrosol is placed in a sealed vial and heated. The heating drives the organics out of the water and into the “headspace” where they can be sampled by a gas syringe for introduction into the GC-MS system fror analysis. Static headspace by its very nature implies that the sample is taken from one phase equilibrium.  In other words, the components that enter the headspace do so depending on their vapour pressures.  If the hydrosol is rich in volatile organics then they will predominate the headspace. In order to overcome this limitataion dynamic headspace has been developed whereby the phase equilibrium is continuously displaced by purging the headspace with helium. The eluents are trapped in the same manner as described in purge and trap.

I bet that many thought that we never analysed them. Suppliers should be so lucky!

Finally, a few back facts.
It is an established fact that back pain is the most widely suffered chronic health problem in the UK with over 60% of the population likely to be affected on a temporary or permanent basis at some time in their lives, according to the FightBACK newsletter.  The cost to this country is a staggering £5 billion per year in lost time and revenue. According to a survey from Unison, the country’s biggest union, four out of five workers suffer from back pain and 20% take time off work because of it.  More than 11 million working days are lost each year.

In a unique approach to the general public, the FightBACK 2001 [www.fightbackevents.com] series of International Back Care Exhibitions will provide a range of practical techniques for alleviating back pain. As an integral part of each event there will be a seminar programme aimed at updating the medical and caring professions on the latest research findings and methods of treatment, but structured so as to enable informed back sufferers to gain new insights into practical aspects of pain management and alternative treatments for their condition.  The first event will be held at UMIST in Manchester from 11th to 13th January.  Might be worth a visit?
 

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