Are the estrogenic effects of tea tree oil absorbed through the skin?
was worried Starch On “A Possible Link Between Gynecomastia and Topical Lavender and Tea Tree Oil.” As I discuss in my video Does tea tree oil have hormonal side effects?gynecomastia he is Abnormal development of breast tissue. (You can see a photo at 0:14 in my profile video.) You may remember I talked about lavender before, but what about tea tree oil?
It all started with a series of cases published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers described three young boys who had breast development “in conjunction with the topical use of products containing lavender and tea tree oils”. How do we know that the products are responsible? “Gynecomastia resolved in every patient soon after they stopped using products containing these oils. Furthermore, studies in human cell lines indicated that these two oils have estrogenic and anti-androgenic activities, that is, pro-female and anti-male hormonal activities.” The researchers concluded that “repeated topical exposure to lavender and tea tree oils may have caused prepubertal gynecomastia in these boys.”
Tea tree oil company representative pointing to It was found that “only one of three boys (patient 2) was exposed to any amount of tea tree oil”, while all three subjects were exposed to lavender oil. Therefore, lavender oil may be the cause in all three cases. How did the researchers respond? “There may be a valid argument that it was lavender oil that caused gynecomastia. However, tea tree oil had similar activity to lavender oil with regard to estrogenic and antiandrogenic effects in vitro.”
Let me tell you about that. As you can see below in the graph and at 1:24 in my country videoIf you are drip A tiny amount of estrogen on human breast cancer cells in a petri dish, you can increase their growth more than twelvefold. If you add an estrogen blocker with estrogen, it cancels out the effect. But adding increased amounts of tea tree oil to breast cancer cells causes them to grow. The reason we know it is an estrogenic effect is that growth decreases when an estrogen blocker is added. This sounds very convincing, but it’s a pro-weed argue That “in vitro testing alone is not sufficient reason to charge conventionally used products and may raise public concerns.”
The Tea Tree Oil Industry Association specifically argued that “only 3 of the more than 100 compounds” from pure tea tree make it permeate the skin, so the researchers had to measure the hormonal effects of these three compounds — which they did later that year.
As you can see in the graph and at 2:25 in my country videoAnd the dripping Increased concentrations of whole tea tree oil on breast cancer cells in a petri dish can increase their growth when compared to an oil that does not have an estrogenic effect, such as eucalyptus oil. However, if you just look at the three components of tea tree oil that make it enter your bloodstream when applied to your skin, none of them appear to have any estrogenic effects. None of the ingredients that penetrate the skin seem to act as estrogen, “neither singly nor in combination,” so you can’t extrapolate the effects of a petri dish of whole oil to what one might see when applied to the skin. What you see in a petri dish may not be the same as what you see in a person.
This new data led European consumer safety officials to this deduce That “the supposed correction … of gynecomastia for topical use of tea tree oil is considered implausible.” In fact, if the anti-androgenic components of tea tree oil remain on the skin, why not use it Treat Women who feel they have too much hair or too much hair? A study was conducted on these women who were asked to spray themselves with a diluted lavender/tea tree oil spray versus a placebo twice a day, morning and evening, on “hairy areas” for three months. Before and after the treatment, “hair was taken from four different areas of the body: the chin, chest, thigh, and upper arms.” After three months, no change was detected in the hair diameter of the placebo group, as expected. But, in the lavender/tea tree oil combination, all hair became thinner, as you can see in the graph and at 3:46 in video.
This showed that the combination of lavender oil and tea tree oil applied Locally applied to the skin it can be effective in reducing mild hypertrichosis, which may represent a “safe, economical and practical tool in the treatment of this disease.”
For additional information beyond possible hormonal effects, see my video Is tea tree oil safe?. I keep adding new tea tree videos so keep an eye on topic page.
To learn more about lavender specifically, see Lavender for generalized anxiety disorder.
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