First Time Buyer? Use Our 20% Discount Code: FIRSTTIME

19% Discount Special offer on Covid Code: COVID_19

 
 

What are the benefits of LEMONGRASS Essential Oil?

LEMONGRASS Essential Oil 

Cymbopogon Flexuosus

Family: Poaceae are monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses.

The reason “why” I added Lemongrass Essential Oil into my Immune 8 blend was because of its anti-microbial (ability to destroy the virus, bacteria, and fungi).

Lemongrass is a grassy plant –Used in many Thai and Chinese dishes. Lemongrass has been used in Indian traditional medicine for helping the immune system with fever and infectious illnesses. It is noted for helping the nervous system with headaches, fatigue, and stress conditions. It helps the digestive system with indigestion and colitis. Has been reported at helping the circulation and muscles, as well as joints with pain and tone. In addition, it helps skin conditions such as acne, and athletes’ foot, and is used as an insect repellent (The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Essential Oils).

Safety data on Lemongrass oil

Safety data states that it is non-toxic but can irritate the skin. Never apply directly on the skin always dilute to 2% for adults and half of that for children.  Immune 8 is diluted for you and ready to use! There is a variation of appropriate drops to carriers on different essential oil websites. For 2% adult dilution use 12 drops to one ounce of your carrier oil or lotion (Esoteric Oils).

Lemongrass- Places of Harvest

The lemongrass is grown in the West Indies (C. Citratus) and East Indies (C. flexuosus), Sri Lanka (C. flexuosus), Guatemala, and India (C. Citratus/C. Flexuosus).  C. Citratus is commonly used in food. Lemongrass tea is consumed for type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension In Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Tanzania (Garba et al., 2020). Lemongrass is used in Cuba for lowering blood pressure and treating rheumatism. Argentina uses lemongrass tea for sore throat and empacho (infant stomach problems). Brazil uses lemongrass for its antispasmodic, analgesic, antipyretic, sedative, diuretic, and anti-inflammatory compounds (Naser et al., 2018).

Lemongrass Essential Oil – Active Constituents

Active constituents (chemical makeup) are unique to just that plant, tree, or shrub. Various parts of that plant (stem, leaves, bark, resin, flowers) are used in making oil and can contain different active constituents designed by nature for protection and growth. The location in the world where the plant is grown affects its therapeutic nature as well. The mixture of the chemistry of the plant gives it the aroma. There are several ways to extract the oil but mostly the oil is produced by steam distillation. This is known as the best method without harming active ingredients.

The top three citral properties (chemistry constituents or compounds) of Lemongrass are the aldehydes of geranial at 41.4% citral-a, neral at 33.9% citral-b, and the monoterpene of geraniol at 6.3% (Ayurvedic Oils). The benefits of just these three constituents, better known as citral are amazing.

  • Lemongrass oil at 400 mg and citral was able to change the action of drug-metabolizing enzymes and reduce oxidative stress in the liver but did not detox acetaminophen (Li, et al., 2018). DOI:10.1016/jfda.2017.01.008
  • Higher photochemical content was seen in lemongrass (C. citratus) when allowed to boil for 10 minutes compared to cold-water extract. A study with type 2 diabetes rats showed this higher content was able to provide significantly lower serum insulin, and improvement in glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, and B-cell function (Garba et al., 2020). DOI:10.1186/s40816-020-00167-y (Blanco et al., 2009). DOI: 10.1016/j.phymed.2007.04.007

What are the Benefits of Lemongrass Essential Oil?

Below are evidential research findings on Lemongrass oil as anti-viral, anti-fungal, & anti-bacterial, anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and other factors. If you wish to read the complete article, just copy the DOI number into the address search bar.

Effects on the Immune System 

The active ingredient or constituent in lemongrass is linalool oxide and epoxy-linalool oxide and is part of the compound monoterpene. They have anti-inflammatory and anti-nociceptive activity. Active ingredients that makeup citral are neral and geranial which have been found to be anti-carcinogenic. When the immune system macrophages are active they release inflammatory cytokines IL-1B and IL-6. Lemongrass oil was able to inhibit those actions in vivo and vitro which may help with inflammatory diseases. http://www.aromaticscience.com/lemongrass-effects-on-il-1beta-and-il-6-production-by-macrophages/

Anti-viral Benefits 

  • C. citratus has been shown to significantly reduced viral replication of the HG23 cells of the murine norovirus (MNV-1), understudy to human norovirus. In animal studies, MNV-1 with lemongrass suppressed replication in vivo (Kim et al., 2017).
  • Nanogel made with lemongrass (citratus) oil has shown better-controlled release than hydrogel and improved the oil’s anti-herpetic activity against Herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 (Almeida et al., 2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.bjp.2018.05.007
  • Dengue fever, Zika virus, and chikungunya disease are all spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Lemongrass (C. citratus) and Tawa-Tawa were able to inhibit the growth of mosquito larvae. The San Francisco plant (Codiaeum variegatum) extract killed both mosquitos and larvae (Perkins, 2016). Article located online at sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/common-plant-could-help-fight-zika-virus

 Anti-fungal Benefits

  • There are over 1.5 million species of fungi with 100 causing human infections. The most common ones are aspergillosis, candidiasis, and cryptococcosis. They are responsible for pulmonary deaths and lung disease, mostly in immunosuppressed individuals. Lemongrass oil, as well as cinnamon and patchouli, were evaluated on fungi of Aspergillus niger, candida Albicans, and cryptococcus neoformans, as well as cytotoxicity on human breast cancer cells showing remarkable results (Powers et al., 2018). doi:10.3390/molecules23071549
  • Lemongrass C. citratus oil extended the life of shelf bread by inhibiting Penicillium expansion growth on bread for 21 days (Mani-Lopez et al., 2018). DOI: 10.4315/0362-028X.JEP-17-315
  • Lemongrass C. citratus oil is effective at reducing candida Albicans biofilm on dentures with no harm to the material used (Madeira et al., 2016). doi:10.3389/fcimb.2016.00071
  • Synthetic fungicides cause many environmental problems. Fungi of Fusarium verticillioides and Alternaria tenuissima contaminate many crops including grains in the field and in storage. Lemongrass ( citratus) oil and cinnamon (Cinnamomum Zeylanicum) oil (another oil in Immune 8) containing components of citral, geraniol, and trans-2-Hexen-1-ol were analyzed on F. verticillioides and A. tenuissima growth and spore germination. Both growth and spore germination were delayed, and fungi were controlled by both essential oils (Lopez-Meneses et al., 2017). doi:10.1111/jph.12554
  • Lemongrass (C. citratus) leaves in powdered form were able to control the fungi A. flavus and aflatoxin B1 in maize grains (Alanda & Olopade, 2013). Online at net/publication/255686588

Anti-bacterial Benefits

  • In the Sudan region, Lemongrass (C. schoenanthus) has medicinal usage for gout, prostate inflammation, kidney disease, and stomach pain. C. schoenanthus oil showed the best anti-proliferative activity against the cell line of human colorectal carcinoma, Good anti-bacterial results were seen on E-coli, Bacillus subtilis, and Staphylococcus aureus (Yagi et al., 2016). http//:www./DOI: 10.1016/j.apjtm.2016.06.009
  • Lemongrass C. citratus oil inhibits Streptococcus mutants in Early Childhood Caries (Mitrakul et al., 2018). doi:10.7860/JCDR/2018/37459.12342
  • Lemongrass C. schoenanthus oil shows its anti-microbial strength against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (MSSA), and Klebsiella pneumonia (Hashim et al., 2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2016.06.001
  • Lemongrass C. flexuous was found to inhibit and kill multi-drug-resistant A. Baumannii bacteria but cytotoxicity requires further testing. This is a worldwide resistant bacteria affecting hospitals and communities (Adukwu et al., 2016). doi:10.1007/s00253-016-7807-y
  • Lemongrass and Cinnamon bark were effective at inhibiting the drug-resistant infection known as MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Deaths from this bacteria strain have surpassed HIV/AIDS. Lemongrass inhibited all strains on the plate (Zouhir et al., 2016). doi:10.1080/13880209.2016.1190763
  • Lemongrass C. citratus oil was tested against Staphylococcus aureus, (S. aureus), Bacillus cereus (B. cereus) , Bacillus subtilis (B. subtilis) , Escherichia coli (E. coli), Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa). Lemongrass was found effective against all organisms except P. aeruginosa, with maximum effect at 30% and minimum effect at 5% concentration (Naik, et al., 2010). DOI: 1016/S1995-7645(10)60129-0

Anti-cancer Activities 

  • Small-cell lung cancer has a high rate of relapse.  (C. citratus) oil and citral were shown to interrupt the pathway in small-cell lung cancer and suppressed their expansion without and with chemotherapy. Lemongrass is also known to inhibit human mouth epidermal carcinoma and murine leukemia (Maruoka et al., 2018). doi:10.3892/ijo.2018.4314
  • Lemongrass (C. flexuosus) oil was successful at suppressing HSP90 gene expression which is a precursor for the folding of cancer proteins and inhibited ATPase (Gaonkar et al., 2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.toxrep.2018.03.014
  • Dandelion root and lemongrass extracts can inhibit cancer activities in prostate cancer. Both extracts with chemotherapy were able to enhance the apoptosis (kill rate) of cancer cells than chemotherapy alone. These two extracts further reduce tumor burden when used orally and were well tolerated (Nguyen et al., 2019). Doi: 10.1155/2019.2951428
  • Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) is an air pollutant and is known as causation in human cancer from free radicals and oxidative stress. Lemongrass (C. citratus) at .05% was able to protect human embryonic lung fibroblast cells from BaP-induced loss of cell viability and reduced levels of DNA damage (Jiang et al., 2017). Doi: 10.1080/15376516.2016.1266541

 Anti-inflammatory Benefits

  • Lemongrass (C. flexuosus) oil was tested on 17 biomarkers that are part of the inflammatory response. Lemongrass significantly affected global gene expression and signaling pathways, thus showing to be an anti-inflammatory agent for inflamed skin conditions (Han & Parker, 2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.biopen.2017.03.004
  • The inflammatory response involves cytokines. The pro-inflammation cytokines are the interleukins (IL) IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-10 and are part of the immune system defense. Citral was able to inhibit IL-1β Lemongrass oil (C. citratus) and citral was able to inhibit IL-6, with citral stopping the production of IL-10. Lemongrass oil was also able to inhibit the actions of the macrophages (Bachiega et al., 2011). DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2011.07.021
  • Lemongrass (C. citratus) oil has been shown to have antioxidant protection and cytoprotective effort when used against a modified LDL in peripheral blood cells (Jamuna et al., 2017). doi: 10.1016/j.fshw.2017.02.001

The list of benefits of all 8 essential oils put into the Immune 8 blend can be found here   https://immune8.com/immune-8-blend-and-beneficial-actions/

Essential oils are an easy way to boost your immune system and can help defend against viruses and other germs, check out Immune8.com

To Your Health & Happiness!!

Dr. Margie

Comments are closed.