Essential Oils with Dr. Eric Zielinski: Rational Wellness Podcast 238
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Dr. Eric Zielinski discusses Essential Oils with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
2:43 Essential oils are neither essential, nor are they oils. Essential oils are volatile organic compounds that contain the essence of the flavor and aroma of plants. They are volatile in the sense that they readily evaporate at ambient room temperature, which is in contrast to chemical air fresheners like Febreze, which you can smell 100 feet away 10 minutes later.
12:53 Artificial fragrances are killing people every day and they are extremely common. They are found as fake smells in every public restroom. They are very strong if walk into a Bed, Bath, and Beyond or a Bath and Bodyworks store or if you go down the cleaning aisle in Walmart. ((% of us are born in a sterile hospital environment and we go home with all these fake smells from Mama’s perfume to the smells on their clothes and their blanket. What does that do to our sense of smell, to our brain. You wonder why autism and learning disabilities and dementia and Alzheimer’s are on the rise? We’re causing brain inflammation. This is why we should surround ourselves with essential oils instead of with fake smells.
16:52 Essential oils differ from herbal medicines in their much higher concentration. No herbal supplement can compare to the therapeutic efficacy of essential oils due to their incredible concentration. One or two drops of cinnamon essential oil are equivalent to two to three teaspoons of cinnamon bark powder at balancing blood sugar.
30:28 Sleep. Lavender is a good essential oil for sleep. Vetiver and Roman Chamomile are also very effective, though a little pricey. Geranium and clary sage are both good. You can also use the tree oils like pine, frankincense, sandalwood, and cedarwood.
34:08 Essential oils for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Zielinski wrote in his book that hand sanitizer contains chemicals that might damage your microbiome and might increase the risk of brain inflammation and of dementia. Also, between the VOCs often emitted by your carpets and all the artificial fragrances and aerosols people have in their homes, when they spend so much time in their homes because of working at home and stay at home orders due to the pandemic, we are subjecting ourselves to a huge toxic burden. Rosemary is an essential oil that is the herb of remembrance, so it can help with memory. Cinnamaldehyde, which is the primary component of cinnamon bark is a natural acetycholinesterase inhibitor, so it can help with Alzheimer’s disease. And of course, cinnamon can help with blood sugar balancing. Basil also has similar activity. Other essential oils with acetycholinesterase inhibitor activity include sage, thyme, lemon balm, also known as melisma, lavender, and bergamot. Clove oil is a natural blood thinner as well as some of the highest antioxidant activity.
Dr. Eric Zielinski is a Doctor of Chiropractic, a natural health guru, and a best-selling author with his wife, Sabrina Ann Zielinski. Dr. Zielinski is the author of The Healing Power of Essential Oils, which has sold over 200,000 copies and he has a new book, The Essential Oils Apothecary.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also specializing in Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure and also weight loss and also athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness podcast for weekly updates and to learn more, check out my site, drweitz.com. Thanks for joining me. And let’s jump into the podcast. Hello, Rational Wellness podcasters.
Today, we’re going to have an interview with Dr. Eric Zielinski on essential oils. And my goals for the podcast episode today are to learn a bit more about what essential oils are and how they can be used in the treatment of specific chronic diseases, like sleep disorders, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease and even cancer, among others. As Dr. Zielinski points out in his new book, The Essential Oils Apothecary, soothing remedies of anxiety, pain, high blood, sugar, hypertension and other chronic conditions, essential oils are neither essential nor oils. They are actually volatile organic compounds and they’re the components of the plant that are released into the air when you smell, say, lavender. But they are oil soluble compounds so they’re used in a carrier oil like olive oil. But we’ll ask Dr. Zielinski to explain more how essential oils are made and work and how they’re different than herbal supplements.
Our guest today is Dr. Eric Zielinski, who is a doctor of chiropractic, a natural health guru and a bestselling author with his wife, Sabrina Ann Zielinski. Dr. Zielinski is the author of The Healing Power of Essential Oils, which has sold over 200,000 copies. Dr. Zielinski, thank you so much for joining us today.
Dr. Zielinski: Well, Dr. Ben, thanks for having me. I got to say I have big shoes to fill. Not many people can boast a hundred five star reviews. You don’t even have a negative review on your podcast here. So I better not screw up. If I screw this thing up, you take it out of my pay, right? How much are you paying me for this? No, no.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. Fortunately, I have a hundred relatives and friends, but-
Dr. Zielinski: I love that.
Dr. Weitz: … just kidding.
Dr. Zielinski: How many wives and kids do you have?
Dr. Weitz: So-
Dr. Zielinski: That’s funny.
Dr. Weitz: … let’s start by explaining: What is an essential oil and how is it made?
Dr. Zielinski: Ah, I’m so glad you mentioned that. They’re not essential… funny.
Dr. Weitz: Oh, who would’ve thought of that question?
Dr. Zielinski: Isn’t that cute? You mentioned something, though, they’re not essential and they’re not oil. I mean, they’re named essential oil because they’re known as the essence of flavor and aroma of plants. So when you put your nose into a rose and those volatile organic compounds are being emitted from the rose, you smell it. And just to go back to biochemistry for people who might forget, volatile or volatile, meaning readily evaporate at ambient room temperature. So that means when you spray your Febreze a hundred feet away in a room and you smell it 10 minutes later, it’s because those particles are floating.
Dr. Zielinski: Well, organic, again, volatile organic compounds. Organic meaning carbon based and compound meaning [crosstalk 00:03:34].
Dr. Weitz: Floating particles. I’ve got to get my mask. No, I’m kidding.
Dr. Zielinski: Yes. Again, don’t get me started. And compound meaning there’s a lot of chemicals, meaning there are a lot of components to it. So I’m holding up a bottle that’s used, almost done, of my favorite blends here. And you’re looking at 150 to 200 different plant chemicals. And what do you mean plant chemical, Dr. Z? Well, you’ve heard of menthol, I’m assuming, right? Eucalyptus menthol. What’s in your Vicks Vaporub? What’s in your Bengay? What makes your pain relieving stuff good? Well, people focus on menthol. So they extract the menthol from the peppermint and they create a drug out of it. Same thing with Pinene, Limonene, Eugenol, Carvacrol and one thing, I mean, let’s call it the elephant in the room. Drugs today, highly, are based off of the chemical constituency that we see in plants. It’s not like a chemist or a pharmacist wakes up in the middle of the night with a vision thinking, “Oh, if we combine carbons and hydrogens and oxygens in a certain way we’ll create this structure.” No. I mean, what we see is what we have in nature and that’s the basis for virtually every drug on the market. And the best example is Willow. For years, thousands of years, our ancestors have used Willow bark for its analgesic pain relieving property. It is a potent anti-inflammatory. They made pulses and salves and creams and all kinds of stuff out of it. Well, there’s a chemical in it. It’s a salicilin in the salicylate family. If you extract that out, if you manufacture it, synthetically mass produce it, put some preservatives in a white, shiny coating, it’s sold as aspirin. It’s literally aspirin. Same thing with your antibiotics; same thing with your Metformin, your diabetes drug; same thing with your cancer medication. I want to stress the importance here. I love aromatherapy for the smell and the feel and getting in the mood for me and my wife to enjoy a nice evening together. That’s all great. But what I’m talking about is medicine. Actual, let’s treat disease, let’s prevent chronic conditions. And that’s the basis for this recent book that we published, advanced strategies and protocols for chronic disease and conditions that are robbing people of the abundant life.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. It’s interesting. You talk about all the different compounds. We just recently had a discussion on a podcast with Dr. Pizzorno, and he did a lecture at the IFM’s annual meeting on Unimportant Molecules. And he was talking about the fact that how we analyze foods and he came up with, say 45, different vitamins and minerals, and, basically, said, those are the only important compounds in food. And now when you go back and you analyze all these phytochemicals, there’s 50,000 chemicals in food and many of them have health promoting properties. We have flavanols and we have carotenoids and on and on and on. And so when you have an essential oil, you have all of these phytochemicals.
Dr. Zielinski: They’re actually known as bioactive compounds.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Zielinski: And so a bioactive compound is a secondary metabolite. So the primary metabolite of photosynthesis and plant biology are your things that you need to live: Your vitamins, your minerals, your carbs. See, here’s the thing. That’s why they’re not essential, right? We should go back to our little … They’re not essential. You don’t need essential oils to live. You technically don’t need fiber to live. You don’t need antioxidants to live. You need carbs, proteins, and vitamins and minerals, or you will die. Now, that’s the difference. Essential nutrient versus non-essential. But non-essential nutrition, including essential oils, including those bioactive compounds, are what give you health. So imagine a life without antioxidants. Imagine a life without fiber. Imagine a life without polyphenols and carotenoids and all those thousands of chemicals. That’s where sickness and disease come into play. So when you’re looking at a nutrition label it’s completely useless. The only thing I look at a label for is to let me know what the ingredients are. Everything else is useless, in my opinion. And so that’s where you start focusing on, okay, what really is important? So that going back to this bioactive compound mentality is this mindset, “Okay. What do I need to live?” I got that. You’re going to get that, basically, … You’re not going to become carb or protein or fat deficient living in America or most industrial countries. You’re going to get that stuff. You’re going to get your basic vitamins and minerals. Very few people are dying of scurvy and vitamin deficiency in our nation.
We could talk about the connection between vitamin deficiency and death, but I’m just talking at a core level. You’re going to get, basically, the stuff that you need, but what’s going to make you healthy? What’s going to make you be able to fight disease? What’s going to give you an immune system? What’s going to help you live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle so that when infection does come in, when you are exposed to XYZ virus or whatever it is that’s out there, how is your body going to respond? And so, to me, I’m glad you mentioned that because, yes, we’ve majored on the minors and we’ve made ants out of molehills kind of thing. And it’s, okay, how do we get back to the basics? And when you look at plant chemistry, you realize, you know what? There’s a lot out there that we’re taking for granted. And that … I’ll propose this. This is my big sales pitch in my books, in my blogs, in my classes. Here’s what I’m trying to sell. Again, I’m not a snake oil salesman. By the way, I don’t even sell these oils. That’s my secret. I don’t sell them. I just educate. So now I could be, as I was taught in public high school, an unbiased researcher, and that’s important to me. So I don’t sell them. I’m not going to peddle them. I’m not going to invite you to my multi-level marketing party. Bless their hearts. I love it. Some of my best friends are the top ranked representatives of these companies, making millions of dollars. Good for them. But I’m just trying to teach you how to look at a lifestyle. And this is my big sales pitch here, to look at a lifestyle a little bit differently. And I want to propose an essential oils lifestyle. I want to propose, when you look at your life, what is your toxic burden? Are you inundating yourself to things airborne, topical, through what you eat that are causing a metabolic burden on your life? Are you poisoning yourself at a microscopic level, not even realizing it? And once you start to look at your life and once you start to look at the things that you use and buy and consume, here’s something that most people don’t know, is that you are surrounding yourself and are surrounded by essential oils all day long. For example, what do you think flavors your Coca-Cola? What do you think flavors any processed food, whether it’s a natural flavoring or an artificial flavoring? It’s either a synthetic essential oil or an actual essential oil. What do you think is the aroma in your Febreze or your plugin or your Wallflower or your candle? What do you think makes your cleaner so effective or your Goo Gone? What’s in your body care that gives it the aroma?
Essential oils are everywhere. And it’s, “Wow. I never thought about that.” And once you start thinking about it, how ubiquitous they are, you start to look at what’s the true danger with synthetically manufacturing these plant chemicals and inundating our bodies with it? And you start to realize here’s the dangerous thing about the essential oil and the synthetic version of it. Because we talked about them being volatile organic compounds, they’re lipophilic hydrophobic, meaning they’re fat loving, water hating. They will penetrate into your bloodstream within minutes and seep through into your cellular level. They will penetrate your whole life, your whole body. You inhale them, immediately your brain’s impacted. There’s no thalamic relay. What’s that? It’s a fancy way of saying when you smell something, it immediately impacts your brain, the smell, unlike the sensation of pain. So go back to the last time you might have accidentally hurt yourself, stubbed a toe, cut your finger chopping carrots. Remember that split second of, “Did I really hurt myself? Ooh, I did.” There is no split second when you inhale something. There is no relay center and interpretation center in the thalamus, a part of your brain. So when you inhale something, it sends a direct signal. Your olfactory system sends a direct signal to your brain where your limbic system is, your mood, your memory, your emotions are housed there. Autonomic function is controlled there: Heart rate, breathing rate, which is smart. When you look at it, as a Christian, it’s awesome. I say, “It’s God’s design. From the evolutionary perspective, it makes sense.” So when you smell smoke, you get in this fight or flight state, this sympathetic state, you get on a high alert immediately. You get out of Dodge. Well, that’s the power of smell. But essential oils, when you look at that, have such an impact on the body that when you flip it on its head, you start to realize, what does the fake essential oil do to me? What do the synthetic fragrances do to me? And that is where I get shaken in my boots because artificial fragrances, Doc, are linked to neurological inflammation, Alzheimer’s, cancer, dementia, autoimmunity. And, of course, the “minor things” like ADHD, learning disabilities, COPD, asthma. That’s the minor stuff, right? But you say that to someone who suffers with that, it’s debilitating. Artificial fragrances are killing people all day long. Artificial flavors are powerful.
Dr. Weitz: How common are artificial fragrances?
Dr. Zielinski: Everywhere. It’s everywhere.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Zielinski: Everything you smell … And, see, you remember, you’re old enough and I’m old enough, don’t you remember when soap didn’t smell like anything. It was soap, right? People that have been around for a while … You remember when there weren’t all these fake smells everywhere. And when’s the last time you’ve been to, let’s say, a restroom, a public restroom? And we frequent public gas stations because we travel a lot, right? So we’re traveling, my family and I take road trips up to Michigan, down to Florida. We live in Georgia. And I can’t tell you how many times I’m in the gas station restroom taking a pit stop with the kids and I hear this, “Psst. Psst.” And, “What in the world’s happening?” I look in the corner. “Oh, someone’s spraying me with an artificial fragrance that makes the pooh pooh smell good.” They’re poisoning us. It’s fumigating in the bathroom. I can’t handle … But gag. You want a cool tip? People are, “Well, it’s okay. It doesn’t bother me.” If you are not bothered by artificial fragrances, if you could walk in the Bed Bath & Beyond or Bath & Bodyworks, if you could go into the cleaning aisle in Walmart and not get sick, not get a headache, if you don’t get a runny nose, if you don’t sneeze, that’s a problem. And that’s synonymous to having diabetic neuropathy where you don’t feel pain and next thing you know, you have a sore in the bottom of your feet that can end up with gangrene and can get amputated because pain is a sensation that tells you there’s something wrong. If you put your hand into a fire and keep it there, it will burn off. And that’s exactly what’s happened with our sense of smell and we become desensitized to it. From birth, from birth, you’re born in a sterile environment with all these fake chemical smells at birth. 99% of kids born in the hospital and then they go home with all these fake smells. Mama is filled with perfume and all this beautiful stuff that makes her smell good. Wow. What does that do to our sense of smell, the primal sense that we have to protect ourselves? And what does it do to the brain? And you wonder. You wonder why autism? You wonder why learning disabilities? We wonder why dementia and Alzheimer’s is on the rise? We’re causing brain inflammation. And that is why I’m trying to propose and sell everyone on this idea of this essential oil lifestyle is you are using and being and eating and surrounding yourself with essential oils all day long. You don’t even realize it. Start to think about it and start to fix it where you’re replacing the fake with the real. And you’ll find your body will respond wonderfully.
Dr. Weitz: Interesting. I’ve really been enjoying this discussion, but I’d like to take a minute to tell you about a new product that I’m very excited about. I’d like to tell you about a new wearable called the Apollo. This is a device that can be worn on the wrist or the ankle, and it uses vibrations to stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. This device has amazing benefits in terms of getting you out of that stressed out sympathetic nervous system and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. It has a number of different functions, especially helping you to relax, to focus, to concentrate, get into a deeper meditative state, even to help you sleep, and there’s even a mode to help you wake up. This all occurs through the scientific use of subtle vibrations.
For those of you who might be interested in getting the Apollo for yourself to help you reset your nervous system, go to apolloneuro.com and use the affiliate code, Weitz10. That’s my last name, WEITZ10. Now, back to the discussion.
Dr. Weitz: So how do essential oils differ from herbal medicine?
Dr. Zielinski: Simple word is concentration. You can’t find essential oils in nature. I think it’s important to recognize that they are a hundred percent natural, but they’re still manufactured. So, again, picking up my little bottle here. If you’re listening, you can’t see it, but I’m just holding up a bottle of essential oil. You’re looking at roughly three pounds of lavender flowers, steam distilled. Again, where are you going to see a pool of lavender in nature? You’re not. You’re not going to go into a rose garden, “Oh, there’s a beautiful rose essential oil. Let me touch it.” It doesn’t exist. So I love herbs and I love herbalism. I love spices and we love supplements, all that stuff, but they’re very minor when it comes to the therapeutic efficacy. Essential oils have true pharmaceutical grade effect on the body. Nothing, no herb, no spice, no supplement, no food, can compare to the therapeutic efficacy that essential oils can have simply by virtue of their concentration matter. And that’s important to realize because one drop will have the effect of, let’s say, your blood sugar. Let’s say, cinnamon. Great example. Cinnamon is highly effective at helping balance blood sugar, help increase insulin sensitivity. But just one or two drops, just drops of cinnamon bark essential oil has the same equivalency of two to three teaspoons of cinnamon bark powder. And how do you compare? So that’s it. It’s true concentration. Very similar, but also a different chemical constituency because when you steam distill plant matter, you only get the volatile components. Again, those that evaporate. Those heavier components … Well, again, we’re getting deep in the chemistry and plant biology here, but there are chemicals that are too heavy. Those won’t go through the steam distillation process. And a perfect example is frankincense and boswellia, boswellic acids. A lot of people use boswellic acid for its pain relieving, cancer fighting property. A lot of supplements have BAs, boswellic acids in them. Your frankincense oil won’t have boswellic acid in it. So what does that mean? As a researcher, as a consumer, you’re, “Okay, what essential oil do I want to use, let’s say, for …” Let’s throw out breast cancer? And you see a study that says, “Oh, frankincense has a property that could help with breast cancer and the researchers poll, “Oh, it’s because of the boswellic acid.” Well, that doesn’t apply to my world. And the reason why I’m sharing that is because there’s a lot of mismanaged and misappropriated research out there and very well intentioned bloggers that are saying, “Hey, frankincense is great for XYZ because of the boswellic acids,” but it’s, well, there are no boswellic acids in the essential oil. So the reason I’m sharing that with you is because when you extract something through steam distillation or solvent extraction, you’re getting a different constituency. The plant is so … It has a myriad of different ways that we could use the plant, whether you use a bark or a leaf, whether it’s steamed distilled or solvent extracted, it’s wonderful. A cannabis oil is not the same as cannabis essential oil or CBD, completely different products, all oily based from marijuana plant, completely different chemical structures.
So that means you just got to learn what’s what and, quite frankly, most people aren’t willing to put the time and the effort, and I don’t expect them to, to dive into this stuff. That’s why I think so many people buy our books because I do the research. I’ve gone to aromatherapy school. I’ve laid it out. I’m, “Okay, this is what you use for this. This is what you consider for that,” and let’s try to make this a little bit simpler. And I know your audience is, dare I say, a little more advanced or educated than the average so I’m talking in a way that I … Typically, don’t talk a lot because I understand, I’ve seen the previous guests and I know what you offer. In functional medicine, we need to step up and we need to recognize one size does not fit all and we need to look at essential oils as a key part of this tool belt that we need to treat and help people.
Dr. Weitz: So before we get into specific conditions, would you say that, let’s say, we’re treating a patient for a specific chronic condition, would essential oils be something that we would add to our herbal protocol? Would you recommend using them in place of it? Would it be … It seems to me it would make sense to add it as an additional component in the treatment plan.
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah, it would be … What I would do is I would look at an essential oil before I would look at a pharmaceutical.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Zielinski: That’s how I want people to look at it.
Dr. Weitz: [crosstalk 00:21:36].
Dr. Zielinski: So your herbs are always there. But that’s what I mean, your herbs are always there. Your supplements are always there.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Zielinski: It’s just now, when in the protocol do you, “Okay, we need something stronger now.” That’s where the essential oil comes into play. And it’s a first step. If we were going to look at it first for people with minor issues, you could try herbs if you want. Or some people go right to the aspirin. The easiest thing is, my medicine cabinet has no pharmaceuticals in it at all. No over the counter. It’s filled with essential oils. That, to me, is the protocol in my life, is if I need something of that nature. Otherwise, if I have … There is this compounding effect, going back to frankincense. I do want boswellic acids in my life. I do want herbs. I do want spices. I do want supplements. So you use them in conjunction with essential oils. Only, though, and here’s the thing, only if you want that level of therapeutic efficacy. And I think that’s important because I don’t use essential oils because I have to. I use essential oils because I want to currently because I’m not sick. And let me clarify. I’m not taking a multivitamin of essential oils. I don’t take a drop of frankincense every day to prevent cancer. I don’t live like that. That’s not my philosophy. I use essential oils going back to my lifestyle approach. It’s in my body care because I don’t use the fake fragrances. It’s in my food because I don’t use the fake flavoring. I like it behind me in my diffuser because I don’t like the fake aerosols, and my body just loves it.
So we use essential oils all day long, but when it comes to actual preventing or treating disease, that’s where it’s, okay, it’s a different mindset. And, again, I don’t take cinnamon oil to balance my blood sugar because I’m not pre-diabetic or diabetic. But, if I were, then that’s when I would look at it in conjunction with herbs and other treatments. A lot of people, quite frankly, they don’t even bother with … Once they reach a certain stage of their condition, the minimum efficacy that a supplement or a herb can have, they’ll go right to the essential oil because, again, you can’t compare. It’s just, who wants to take 15 pills of a turmeric when you can just have two drops of an essential oil? That’s how concentrated these are. And when you use them in a medicinal dose, then you understand it is that level. So a lot folks, if they have low grade issues, they don’t even bother with the essential oil because they’re eating habits, they’re stress relieving habits or whatever there is, their supplement habits, protocols will help. So, I guess, I just want to paint that picture is when it comes to ingesting, that’s the key. Ingesting essential oils. You only ingest essential oil medicinally when you want that true pharmaceutical grade punch.
Dr. Weitz: And so I know we’re going to talk about aromatherapy, which is our topic for today. But in terms of ingesting essential oils, are they, typically, put into a capsule or do you put some drops in a glass of water? Or what form are they ingested?
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah. And actually, let me … I’m glad you said that. Let me correct you. This is aromatherapy. See, isn’t that interesting? This is the misnomer. I’m so glad you said this. People think aromatherapy, they only think of smelling pretty stuff. Aromatherapy is the therapeutic use of aromatic compounds. So how you use essential oils, depending on what method, will determine your aromatherapy response. So aromatherapy is ingesting it. Aromatherapy is topical application. Aromatherapy is inhaling it. So that’s where we’ve got to get out of this mindset of, “Oh, I just go to the store to get something smelly and nice.” That is ancient aromatherapy because, quite frankly, and let’s be real, our ancestors didn’t have essential oils like we have them today. And how do I know that? Well, steam distillation wasn’t invented till the 9th Century A.D. by an Arab alchemist. So, again, my well-intentioned multilevel marketing friends who are Christian saying, “Oh, Jesus used frankincense and myrrh.” It’s Christmas time right now coming up here. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. You how many times I’ve been told people are convinced that Jesus used frankincense oil? No way. It was impossible. Why? There was no way for them to extract it.
So when you think about where we’re at today, traditional aromatherapy used to be burning leaves and incense. Cool. And then they got smart. Our ancestors started to put aromatic plants in oil. Actually coming from the Bible. God told Moses, “Hey, get this big old vat of olive oil, put some myrrh, calamus, cinnamon, cassia and just let that steep and hang out for a while.” A.k.a, he gave them an anointing oil recipe, which was a herbal extract, extracting out some of the essential oil in this wonderfully, beautiful aromatic experience that was aromatherapy. And why would God do that? Well, I don’t know, but I’ll tell you. They were sacrificing animals, blood sacrifices. There’s a lot of risk for infection. And there’s very few things, by the way, that are antimicrobial like essential oils. This stuff kills MRSA on contact. I mean what kills MRSA? Antibiotic resistant bacteria. What kills anti-fungal resistant fungi? Essential oils. There is no known resistance to them, to anything on the planet. That’s why researchers today are looking at Carvacrol, which is a primary component of oregano to help with COVID. Hey, this is very cool preliminary research. No one’s making claims that COVID’s going to cure the pandemic. But the researchers, medical researchers are saying, “Look, we know the benefits of using Carvacrol for destroying bacterial cell walls and also to kill viruses. We should look at Carvacrol a.k.a. Oregano oil to help with COVID-19.” The research is being done as we speak.
So this is pretty cool stuff when you look at it. So all that to say, when you ingest essential oils, there’s two primary ways of doing it. Going back to your Coca-Cola, your peppermint patties, your flavored ice cream, that’s what’s known as a culinary dose, very, very minor. One drop of oregano in your spaghetti sauce. That’s enough. But it gives you a nice minor … It’s like herbs. It’s just like using weed. That’s our substitution guide is, if a recipe calls for one to two, let’s say, teaspoons of a herb, a spice or a zest, a lemon or orange zest, just use one drop of oil. That’s a literal substitution in your recipe. But what it does, it has such a powerful antioxidant punch, antiviral punch, that the herb doesn’t have. And that’s the culinary dose. But if you want a true medicinal dose, yes, you need a gel capsule. You need to have … I recommend a vegan gel capsule. If you’re treating the gut for those people … Excuse me … Who are trying to look at minimizing, managing, or even, hopefully, reversing the symptoms of SIBO, Crohn’s, irritable bowel, leaky gut, you need an enteric coded capsule, which is a fancy way of saying it’s a polymer time release capsule. So when you take the capsule, your body won’t digest it until it gets down to your intestines.
So that’s how you literally treat gut issues because the gut is distal colon. And there’s research sharing, suggesting, proving, three to six drops of peppermint essential oil, going back to peppermint, can help soothe the symptoms and help people with SIBO. And they’ve done actual research up to that level. So in our book, we take what traditional aromatherapy has taught, we take what we know from the biochemistry, we take what we also know of the metabolic pathways of how drugs are metabolized and we share dosing requirements. And, typically, when you’re dosing internally, you’re looking at three to six drops in a capsule and it’s potent. Topical, want to point out, topical aromatherapy is think transdermal patch, right? Pain patches now, nicotine patches. We’ve seen this for years. We know that chemicals seep through the skin and get into the bloodstream to have a therapeutic effect. The same thing with essential oils. So what we try to do is teach people the safe way of diluting them and making Sabs. Again, this is huge, different strategy than I want to smell good. And, don’t get me wrong, our body care is all with essential oils. All of it, because we want to smell good but we also like that nice minor medicinal, just a happy, feely, good thing. But when something goes wrong, I have an infection or we’re trying to treat something or whatever it might be, a headache, a migraine, we know to up the dose to a certain level and now we get that therapeutic effect.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. So let’s start with sleep. How can essential oils be helpful in promoting quality sleep?
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah. Instantly. Instantly can put you in the parasympathetic state. Instantly.
Dr. Weitz: So what would you recommend for sleep?
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah. Traditionally lavender is a good start. Doc, one thing I love about essential oils, and, again, there’s a lot of things we do. I mean, we’re the granola, hippie, urbanite, yuppy people that give birth at home. That’s me and my wife and our family. There’s a lot that we do, but when it comes to it, a lot of the things that your other guests are sharing besides forest bathing, by the way, that was a great interview, essential oils are forest bathing, by the way. I mean that’s a whole … What do you think makes forest bathing so potent and so healthy and so helpful? Primarily the volatile organic compounds being made from the plants.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Zielinski: So one thing that’s really important is that when you look at this discussion, you start to realize, “Okay, I need to find something that works for me and maybe lavender is a right approach. Or maybe I should try something else.” But I digress. The one thing that I want to encourage people with is unlike … And, again, this is my sales pitch. I’ve got to do it. Unlike a lot of the things that we learned and a lot of the wonderful things that your experts and other guests have showed, what is easier, literally easier, and even cost effective than getting a 10 or $15 bottle of lavender putting two or three drops in a diffuser and press “On” right before you go to a bed? There is zero barrier to entry, right? Essential oils are the gateway to natural health, natural living, just like cigarettes are the gateway to drugs, right? That is … I want to impress everyone how easy this is. So nothing on the planet is as easier or cost effective than getting a couple drops, putting in a diffuser, pressing “On.” Done. So that’s what you do. You get a water diffuser, 15/20 bucks on Amazon. Get a good essential oil. Again, I share with you how to find a good essential oil. That’s a whole another discussion, but there are a lot of fakes out there. There are a lot of counterfeits. You got to find the real deal. Once you get one, a couple drops of lavender. Wonderful.
Now, if you have a little more on your budget, and I want to recognize … We have five kids. I get it. Not everyone has a blank check. Vetiver Roman Chamomile they’re super effective, but they can get a little pricey. So what are other oils you could use? Well, geranium, clary sage, a lot of women like these oils. They’re the traditional women’s health oils. They’re wonderful for calm and peace. Again, when you breathe these in, these volatiles organic compounds and you automatically get in that parasympathetic state, it’s instant. So that would be a good way of starting. Some of the … Going back to the tree oils and forest bathing, all those oils can help: Pine, frankincense, sandalwood, cedarwood, anything with a “wood” at the end of it. It’s a wonderful, wonderful way. And that’s just aromatic. That’s just through the aromatic compounds being emitted from the diffuser. But if you really want to get into it and that doesn’t help you enough, that’s where you could use a topical application and giving yourself a neck rub or a foot rub. That’s where taking an actual lavender capsule can give you that. If you’re overdosing on a melatonin supplement just to get through the night, you might need something a little more, I don’t know, dare I say stronger? You might need a stronger approach at first until you’ll get so sensitive to just smelling lavender where it just puts you right there.
Dr. Weitz: So I want to ask next about the use of essential oils for dementia and Alzheimer’s. And I wanted to say before you answer that question, in your chapter on that, I noticed that you wrote that, “We should think twice before using hand sanitizer because it might increase the risk of brain inflammation because of damage to our microbiomes.” And all I could think is, “Boy, there very well might be a huge increase in the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s as a result of the massive use of hand sanitizer in the last two years.”
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah, that was tough to get in the book actually. My publisher wanted to cut that part out. And I wrote this book in quarantine. It was the very beginning of lockdown quarantine in COVID 2019. Wait, I’m sorry. 2020. So when I wrote this book, I just … Again, my job’s easy. I’m not a practicing aromatherapist. I’m not a practicing chiropractor. I’m a researcher and I’m an author, I’m a speaker and I share what the researchers say. So this is the easiest thing. Look, a couple of years ago in Oxford University Journal … Again, this isn’t … I love aromatherapists, but they have a stigma of being hippies that smell like patchouli. So the medical world and a lot of people just marginalize them, “Oh, that’s pseudoscience. We get that as chiropractors. It’s pseudoscience.” Oxford University isn’t pseudo science of any sort. It’s the premier university on the planet next to Harvard and Yale, whatever your ranking is. There’s a journal called Evolution, Medicine and Public Health that found a strong link between over sanitized wealthier countries and higher rates of Alzheimer’s. They conducted this study over 192 countries, basically, the whole world and they found the more sanitized a country I, the higher the rates of Alzheimer’s like a linear relationship. Now, no. I didn’t use the word. It’s really important. It’s not a play on words. I’m not trying to be smart here. I didn’t say “clean” I said “sanitary.” All right? Huge difference. Soap and water will get your hands clean. But if you want to quote, “Sanitize your hands,” you need something else. And the problem is we’ve over sanitized our life to the point where we’ve, literally, destroyed …. And the research has concluded. Why? It’s the lack of bacteria on your hands. This is really hard for some people to conceptualize. Please bear with me.
There is a gut microbiome. I know you’ve had a lot of your speakers talk about this in the past. There’s also a skin microbiome and there’s a brain microbiome. What do you think makes us who we are? So when we have a lack of bacteria on our hands because of hand sanitizer, it’s been linked to a poorly developed immune system, which puts your brain at risk for brain and neurological inflammation. I mean, are you serious? Now, when you compound that with fake chemicals and toxic chemicals, cleaning products and artificial fragrances that directly put the brain in neurological inflammation, it’s no wonder that we’re in the cognitive state that we are. And we’re decreasing rapidly. Why? Because we spend a vast majority of our time indoors. I mean, even before I wrote this book, the most recent research we had was a couple of years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency was clear and they said, “Look, we spend 93% of our time indoors.” And the reason they’re sharing that is the air inside of our houses are two to five times, some up to a hundred times, more polluted than outside. You’re better off breathing toxic smog in LA than you are in your house if you live in an apartment that you can’t control the airflow. No joke. It’s bad stuff. Bad News Bears in your home. So why is the EPA talking like this? Well, they recommend having a HEPA purifier. Now HEPA air purifiers are COVID protocol for hospitals and nursing homes and schools and all that stuff. I actually bought air purifiers for our kids’ school. Every room in the school have them. It’s that important. But that research was done a couple years or ago before COVID and that was 93% of our time spent indoors.
What do we know about life since? I mean, we’re looking at 99 to a hundred percent of people’s time. Literally, a hundred percent. Some people haven’t left their home in two years. Is indoor. So what are we breathing all day long? We think about the airborne pathogens. Doc, I’ve been talking this way for quite a while, almost 10 years. And it took COVID to bring word awareness that I’ve been trying to preach for a long time, at least in my life, right? I’m 41 years old. Airborne pathogens. People think COVID. No. Think the VOCs that are being emitted from your carpet, your cleaning material. Think about the aerosols, the fragrances. Think about the stuff that’s constantly just around you. That is public enemy number one. That’s the stuff that puts our brain at risk for inflammation in our immune system, dampening, and puts us at a slew of host of toxic burden that could be linked to chronic disease.
So that, for number one, what’s the solution? Well, don’t use hand sanitizer. I mean, unless … Going back to my road trip lifestyle my wife and I take with our kids a few times a year, unless I’m in the middle of the road with no bathroom nearby changing a poopy diaper, I’m not using hand sanitizer ever, ever. It’s not part of my life. And you know what? I had to break up with hand sanitizer because I used to be an addict. And I’ll admit. I had an OCD years ago. Every time I touched a doorknob, every time I did anything, I had a hand sanitizer. Do you know what’s part of kids’ school supply list? Paper, pencil, erasers, markers, hand sanitizer. You can’t walk into school without a hand sanitizer. So what we do is we make our own. Basically, an alcohol based with essential oil. Done. No toxic chemicals. And why this is even more important is not only what the research shares about brain inflammation and dampening the immune system, but how many more products does the FDA have to ban? It just happened again last month. Oh, another one. High levels of benzine, a known carcinogen. You better not use this hand sanitizer. There’s dozens out there in the market that are just poison. And, finally, because so many people are using them getting sick and dying, the FDA is finally saying, “Hey …” But what about all the people that have been hurt? What about all the people that just got diagnosed with cancer? They have no idea why. And maybe it’s because a contributing factor could be the hand sanitizer that just got recalled.
We need to think twice. And there should be no antibacterial products in your possession, zero. So, yes, this conversation … “Okay. Well, you just overwhelmed me. If they’re in my food, they’re in my air, essential oils, fake essential oils, whatever. What do I do? Where do I start?” Number one, you start with your hand sanitizer. And if you have to use it, if you work at a hospital or if your kids need it, make your own. Just get the highest proof alcohol you can. Whatever moonshine, vodka you could get at the store, get 15/20 drops of essential oil, get a spray bottle, bada boom, bada bing, you’re done. It’s so easy. That’s the best hand sanitizer, effective hand sanitizer. It will kill everything.
But here’s a cool thing. Besides some dehydrating aspect and, by the way, alcohol will dehydrate your skin, essential oils have what’s known as cell selectivity. And, again, I have an easy job as a Christian. When I don’t understand something, I’m, “Hey, it’s just the wisdom of God. It’s how God created it.” Well, the scientists can’t explain why, but essential oils target the pathogenic microorganisms and leave the good stuff alone.
So we all know about probiotics, good, healthy bacteria. If you ingest essential oils, people are ingesting oregano to help cure and repair leaky gut, they’re ingesting essential oils, they’re putting them on their skin to kill the viruses and bacterial fungi. You don’t have to worry about ruining your microbiome. That’s pretty cool stuff when you think of it. Again, the wisdom of God. Science can’t explain it. So that’s if you need it. But what else? What’s another good step. Well, think about your body care and think … Because, again, we’re talking Alzheimer’s, we’re talking dementia, we’re talking you’re 41 years old. I’m 41 years old. You’re 30. You’re 25. You could smell pretty. You could smell good. Guys, whatever, handsome, good looking, whatever, you could smell good and you don’t have to hurt yourself at the same time. No perfume, no cologne. Throw it away.
Start making your own. Start experimenting. Because what do you think are the basis for your perfumes and colognes? The perfumers are taking the essential oil and then they’re loading them up with chemicals and preservatives to give you this, ugh, toxic. I can’t even handle going down the perfume aisle like I used to. I used to love those Acqua di Gios and Armani’s expensive stuff. Couple drops of essential oil.
You know what’s funny? I’ll never forget speaking … A mutual friend, a colleague, Dr. Peter Osborne, functional medicine doc invited me to speak at a conference a couple years ago. And I flew into Houston on the way to Dr. Osborne’s office and the Uber driver, again, this big, burly Latino guy, he says, “Man, you smell good. What are you wearing?” And I’m, “Citrus oils.” He’s, “What?” Boom. Had a cool conversation. I get more compliments from dudes than I do how good I smell. It’s you smell good, you smell normal, you smell healthy, you smell like we should smell. You smell like nature. Just pointing out.
But you know when I do it, it moisture … My body care. Why am I saying that? Because it’s our body care. A little bit of coconut oil, a little bit of essential oil. Done. Yeah, you could get fancy. We got all the fun little SháSu [inaudible 00:44:00] recipes, all that cool stuff if you want to do it. But it’s so easy and your body responds so well. Everyone has olive oil or you should, or coconut oil in your kitchen. That’s it. That’s half the battle.
So how are we treating, how are we preventing Alzheimer’s? It’s this life’s style? And another thing everyone should do, throw away the aerosols. No more pooh pooh sprays and plugins. Throw that trash … Oh, wait … And here’s the thing. If you’re like my wife, I’m sorry. You’ve just got to let go. Throw it away. When I hit my revelation, this was over a decade ago, I’m, “Sabrina, this stuff is bad for us. We can’t use this.” My wife said, “We can’t throw away …” The clean plate club, like my grandma who came from the Great Depression couldn’t throw away anything. She goes, “We can’t throw it away. We can’t. We got to use it and then we’ll transition out.” No. This is poison. We had a little bit … Because she wasn’t there yet, right?
By the way, if you’re a zealot like me, be patient with your spouse. If you’re a zealot like me, be patient, right? That’s the problem that we’re having right now, especially in the context of the pandemic. We have zealots on both sides of the fence. Be patient with your loved ones. Because, for me, it’s, “You know what? It’s not going to kill me. I know it’s harmful, but you know what? Breathing in this thing, isn’t going to kill me today and it’s not worth a divorce.”
I mean, hey, I’m giving marriage advice here, which helped me in a big way because if you’re gluten free and if your husband’s eating pizza and breads sticks all day long, that’s going to cause marital problems. That’s the number one thing we always get. How do I get my family on board? Because I’m there. And women listening are usually the spear headers. Women listening, most are … Just statistically, women are usually the caretakers of the home and they’re the ones who get this. It’s really hard for men, typically, to get this stuff, right? It’s a female dominated industry across the board.
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Dr. Weitz: So give me a couple of essential oils we can use as, let’s say, I have a patient on a functional medicine approach for dementia, what are some essential oils we can add to the protocol?
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah. Well, rosemary, the herb of remembrance. And going back to herbalism, a lot of those herbs and spices, rose for love, rosemary for, again, memory, there’s a reason, and our ancestors are very observant, very intuitive. So if you want to help cognitive function, rosemary. You can diffuse it, you can apply it topically, you can even adjust it. It’s safe. But cinnamon, believe it or not … And I don’t know how much time you even have to get in depth with this, but the primary approach to Alzheimer’s treatment is using a drug known as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. So low acetylcholine levels, which is a neurotransmitter in the brain, low levels of acetylcholine is the hallmark sign of Alzheimer’s and dementia. And you need acetylcholine for brain synapses and cognitive function. So what medicine has done is, okay, we have low levels of this neurotransmitter, so what we should do according to the pharmaceutical mentality, is let stop the natural breakdown of acetylcholine. Well, how do you do that? Well, there’s an enzyme known as acetylcholinesterase. Anything with an “ase” is an enzyme, right? So there’s an enzyme known as acetylcholinesterase that naturally breaks down the acetylcholine. Well, why would that be? Well, because we’re on a cycle. Just like your skin, literally, regenerates itself every 28 days, everything is being used and built, used and built, used and built. And so what the drug approach is, is to stop the enzyme from breaking down acetylcholine so there’ll be higher levels of acetylcholine. Okay. The problem with that is (a), it doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It can’t cure the disease and the side effects are horrendous. I mean, bad stuff, including dizziness, vomiting, memory loss, which is ironic, and death. Well, research has shown that cinnamaldehyde, which is the primary component of cinnamon bark, has an 80% efficacy against acetylcholinesterase. Wow. I mean, you’re talking ingesting and inhaling cinnamon bark oil can help my brain function? Wild, isn’t it? And there are other oils.
Dr. Weitz: It could also help with blood sugar control because-
Dr. Zielinski: Thank you.
Dr. Weitz: … a typical protocol for dementia, Alzheimer’s, is going to be a ketogenic diet to try to control blood sugar.
Dr. Zielinski: Yes. Yes. And you have basil. I’ll read a list. Other oils that are known for their acetylcholinesterase activity: You have rosemary again, sage, thyme, lemon balm, also known as melisma, lavender, bergamot and basil, and then others. So, again, this is what I do. I go through the research. I share … Okay, this is preliminary stuff. I mean, we have admittedly, though, let’s be real, we have very little human trials over the course of many, many years to test therapeutic efficacy of oils versus drugs. I get that. So a lot of this is “theoretic,” a lot of this is experimental. But I’m telling you something, if used properly there are zero side effects to using essential oils, other than the rare case of some allergy. And part of that is knowing what drug interaction might occur if you ingest them.
And that’s what we include in the book. It’s actually the only thing that I think exists for the layperson. And even going through aromatherapy school, there is nothing as in depth and simple to look at as a chart. We have this drug interaction chart in the book that says, “A drug for Alzheimer’s, the drugs for diabetes, the drugs for insomnia or whatever,” says, “Look, you can’t ingest these essential oils or you can have an interaction.” Most people don’t realize that clove oil is a blood thinner. So if you’re on Warfarin, you could cause internal hemorrhaging. And the problem is most multilevel marketing companies and other companies include clove in their “Immunity boosting blend.” Why? Because clove oil has some of the highest antioxidant compound ability than anything on the planet. The ORAC scale of clove is a million.
Dr. Weitz: Wow.
Dr. Zielinski: I mean, a million compared to wild blueberry’s antioxidant load of ORAC points of what? Five to 7,000. We’re talking a hundred or a thousand times more potent,-
Dr. Weitz: [inaudible 00:51:53].
Dr. Zielinski: … clove oil. So that’s what we’re dealing with. Again, going back to your urban spice examples, this is highly concentrated stuff, but you got to be careful, though. If you’re ingesting oils, really make sure you’re working with a properly trained functional medicine practitioner, someone who understands, at the very least who could do a little bit of research and help you because if you’re on a pharmaceutical, again, be really, really careful with any potential interaction.
Dr. Weitz: In your chapter on Alzheimer’s you also talk about Anosmia, which is the loss of sense of smell that can happen with Alzheimer’s disease. And we also, as you know, have a virus around, and the infection with that virus can lead to a loss of sense of smell. Is there an essential oil protocol that can help to return a sense of smell in either Alzheimer’s or in viral infections or both?
Dr. Zielinski: There’s no protocol other than the standard of care in this space is to be stimulating your olfactory nerves on a regular basis. That could help. Very similar to stimulating hair follicle growth to help if you’re losing hair. By the way, rosemary is wonderful at stimulating hair follicles, could help regenerate hair growth. So that’s what we try to do is … I hate to use the phrase, fake it till you make it, but the reality is if you have lost your sense of smell, you want to do what you’ve always done. You don’t want to stop. You don’t want to stop diffusing essential oils. You don’t want to stop. And you might want to even be a little more targeted where you could get an aromatherapy inhaler. And let me pull one up here. You can go online, just type up aromatherapy, personal aromatherapy inhaler. And this looks like a lipstick or a chap stick tube. And it’s just a glass tube with a cotton wick that is saturated with essential oils. And this is concentrated essential oil, but it’s personal. It doesn’t affect the room. You could use this on the airplane, your neighbor next door or right next to you won’t smell this. But this is a nice way of getting more concentrated, essential oil vapor. And this could help stimulate … You could plug one nostril, breathe in through the other. It’s also a wonderful meditative technique for people that are really trying to focus and relax and calm. Essential oils do wonders with and comes to mental clarity and focus and all that.
But the thing is, though, I’m glad you mentioned the Anosmia because even though you might not … And we didn’t even talk too much about mood or memory or emotions, but essential oils work primarily on the emotional level to stimulate memory. So when you walk into grandma’s house this Thanksgiving and you smell turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce, that’s going to stimulate, hopefully, happy memories of holidays in the past because the smell triggers a memory in the brain. And you know what happens? You’ll, literally, manifest the same hormone and neurotransmitter production that you did when the memory was made. It’s wonderful. That’s why smelling something can bring you back right there. You’re a five year old kid sitting on Santa’s lap because you smell peppermint. He had peppermint stick smell on him. Now, you won’t get that. You won’t experience that manifestation, the emotional benefit, of inhaling essential oils if you don’t have your sense of smell, but because essential oils work, regardless if you want them to or not, inhaling certain essential oils like orange, lime, grapefruit, will stimulate a production of dopamine or serotonin in the brain.
So what am I saying? You use essential oils if you can’t smell them because you know that your body’s going to respond, at least on a physiological level. So on a physiological level they will respond if you can’t even smell, you don’t have the sense of smell, but on a psychological level, you won’t have any benefit. So, okay, okay. I get it. And it was a shame that so many people have been affected by COVID that way. My wife, even now her sense of smell has been dampened since COVID. I mean, at one point she couldn’t smell anything for a few months. Myself included. Mine went back really quick, thank God. Hers, she’s still at 75%. She’s not at a hundred percent yet, but we still do what we do. And we’ve had wonderful, wonderful feedback from our community members and people that read our books. They follow this, “You know what? I’m not there a hundred percent, but I’m doing a lot better.” Because sense of smell is so important with flavor, with just experience of life, especially at the psychological level of enjoying aroma, it’s so key.
Dr. Weitz: So let’s maybe cover one more topic. I was thinking maybe cancer.
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah. Yeah. Very respectfully, bleach in a Petri dish will kill cancer cells. I think it’s important to recognize the studies that we have are virtually all in vitro cells in Petri dish or we’re dealing with tumors on animals. We have no studies, no studies on humans, and that’s my disclaimer. But there’s a lot of research, though, a lot. We’re talking about specific cancer cell lines and types.
And I actually have a chart in the book that covers the exhaustive … At a point when we wrote this in 2020, the exhaustive list of all the research done on what specific cancers. And you’d be surprised. You’d be surprised at certain … And maybe it’s just because that’s what the research has done. And that was just what the researchers felt they should try. But there are very specific oils that seem to have pretty potent efficacy on certain cancers.
And so that’s a thought is that I hope if this is something that you are facing … And, again, I don’t have an anti-cancer protocol because I don’t have cancer. I’m not there. But if you do, if you have been diagnosed, working with an integrative oncologist I think is so important. Someone, an oncologist, who recognizes that there are alternatives that could help.
And here’s the thing that I want to stress is that there is zero scientific rationale or zero research to suggest that people should not be using essential oils if they’re undergoing cancer treatments. And that seems to be one of the biggest misnomers in conventional oncology is oncologists by and large will just recommend against anything.
I was privileged and blessed to follow a beautiful young woman in her story overcoming breast cancer and we created a documentary. And one thing the doctor told her at one point was, “Don’t even take vitamin C.” And she’s, “Why?” And she’s, “Well, we don’t want anything to interact with the chemo and make it less effective. We are just going to put you in a state where your immune system is just useless.” It’s, God, what research? It was fear based. It’s all CYA covering their assets. They’re so fearful of malpractice and lawsuits.
And so what this woman did … And if you’re interested and if you want a movie that you’ll cry to tonight, I guarantee a tear, an emotional. This is a documentary. It’s won Film Festival. It was the most inspirational movie of 2020. Go to hopeforbreastcancer.com. Go to hopeforbreastcancer. Watch it for free. It’s my gift for the world. Just watch it. It’s a wonderful film and it’s a wonderful story.
But this woman, Angie, she started doing things without her oncologist knowing about it, “I’m going to use essential oils.” She started making her own capsules. She was telling me the story. Why am I mentioning this? Because this is where essential oils come into play. It’s not all or nothing. You should never look at your life, you should never look at health thinking, “I can only go natural or I can only go conventional.” There’s no balance in that. You have to do what’s right for you.
But here’s the thing, though, regardless of what you choose, you should, and I want to encourage you to have essential oils be part of something, because they should be part of everything, in my opinion. They should be part of it to help you, whether you’re on the all natural route, whether you’re on the conventional route or whether you’re integrative, in the middle.
So, Angie, her name was, from this story, she found herself … And I’ll never forget this … She walked into the chemo room because she took chemo, and she ended up stopping earlier on, she didn’t take the whole system, the whole round and all the … But at one point she walked in on her second or third treatment, and everyone around her, just pale, ash colored skin, they looked like death. I mean, even with her losing her hair, she looked good. Her skin was vibrant, she had the sparkle in her eye, she was not absolutely just annihilated. Yeah, she got sick and she had some side effects, but she just pointed out, it almost felt like she almost felt guilty. She was going through chemo like everyone. Everyone else was barely walking in.
And she accredits that to her natural lifestyle, the food she was eating, the supplements she was taking, the stress, mind, body, prayer, meditation, the essential oils she was using to help.
So that’s what I want to stress. We cover cancer very respectfully in the book. No cure all claims. I’m very much in tune. And I promote … Because here’s a quote. I want to actually quote this from my book, from Biomed Research International: “Essential oils have been reported to improve the quality of life of the cancer patients by lowering their level of their agony. EO [inaudible 01:01:39].” And just that alone. “Essential oils can be used for improving the health of the cancer patient and is a source of a novel anti-cancer compound.”
So why did I include this? Well, I hope some brave cancer patient will show this to their doctor and be, “Look, you can’t recommend me not to take frankincense. This research suggested it could help me.” So you might not want to choose that doctor if you have a doctor that’s just going to say flat out, “No.” We need to work with educated professionals who at least will support you in your decision to do whatever it is that you want to do.
With that said, and we glossed over this, there’s nothing that I know that has such a wonderful effect like essential oils on symptoms, everything: Nausea, headaches. I mean, again, going back to the Alzheimer’s chapter, we have this whole chart of symptoms that Alzheimer’s patients deal with, elderly patients, everything from aggression to bed sores to just stomach issues, you name it, just dry skin. Essential oils are wonderful at symptom based management.
That’s what we focus on in the book is helping people manage the symptoms related to cancer. And there’s a ton of them, and just what to do and how to consider … That way you’re not tempted to maybe go with some pharmaceuticals that will end up destroying your gut lining and making you more immune susceptible to disease and all that stuff.
So I feel it’s a very respectful approach. Again, no cure all claims, but we want to help you. If you’re losing weight, there are essential oils to help you. You want to eat more. I mean, that’s something most people don’t think about. Everyone’s in this, “I want to lose weight,” but if you’re cachexic, if you’re wasting away, if you are struggling to eat, going back to lavender, those oils that puts you in that parasympathetic state will make you want to eat, will help with hunger. So that’s something to think about. Same thing with bruising and swelling. We have a bruise cream. And constipation, all that kind of stuff.
So anyway, I just want to help your lifestyle and that’s it. At the end of the day we’d done … With that documentary, especially walking through and seeing and hearing these stories of these beautiful cancer patients going through what they’ve gone through, it seems to be the quality of life through the journey that really makes or breaks them.
And, yes, everyone wants to cure cancer. Everyone wants to avoid cancer. I get that. But what about the process? What about the day to day? And maybe your chemo or your radiation or your essential oil therapy, maybe it doesn’t save your life, ultimately, but if you could do something to give you an extra three or four or five months, would you not want that? And would you not want three or four or five months of good health and vibrancy and being able to enjoy your family and friends?
It’s a finite way of thinking to only focus on the end result when we lose today because all we are guaranteed is today. I can’t guarantee you to tomorrow. I can’t guarantee myself an hour from now. All I have is this moment. And that’s really the message, not only the documentary, but it’s the message of our whole ministry is to help people do better in the moment so that you have a more abundant life.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Thank you Dr. Zielinski. And everybody get The Essential Oils Apothecary. I’m assuming it’s available at all the places books are available?
Dr. Zielinski: Yes, sir. Yes.
Dr. Weitz: So Amazon, Barnes & Noble, et cetera?
Dr. Zielinski: Yeah, everywhere. And for those people who want to take a deep dive, we cover 25 different chronic conditions in depth, everything from fibromyalgia to insomnia, to depression, substance abuse, even libido and erectile dysfunction. These chronic conditions that are robbing people of the abundant life. We go in depth and sharing everything with you that the research suggests on how essential oils can help. If you pick up a copy, we have a gift. And you go to eoapothecary.com and you just sign up for our book bonus gift and you’ll get about six and a half hours of Masterclass videos for free and my wife and I show you how to make several of these recipes. And we cover these topics more in depth, like heart disease and other things that we just didn’t have enough space in the book to cover. So go there. We got charts, PDFs, downloads, all kinds of fundamental things. Go to eoapothecary.com.
Dr. Weitz: Excellent. Thank you so much, Dr. Zielinski.
Dr. Zielinski: Thanks for having me, Doc.
Dr. Weitz: [crosstalk 01:06:15] podcast.
Dr. Zielinski: Appreciate you.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please go to Apple Podcast and give us a five star ratings and review. That way more people will be able to find this Rational Wellness Podcast when they’re searching for health podcasts. And I wanted to let everybody know that I do now have a few openings for new nutritional consultations for patients at my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition Clinic. So if you’re interested, please call my office (310) 395-3111 and sign up for one of the few remaining slots for a comprehensive nutritional consultation with Dr. Ben Weitz. Thank you and see you next week.
