In his book Healing Oils of the Bible, David Stewart makes claims about disease and cancer, and the ability to treat them using essential oils containing monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes. He states that monoterpenes “reprogram the cells with correct information so they may function properly”. He further states that sesquiterpenes “deprogram or erase the wrong information from the cellular memory stored in the DNA”, that they deliver oxygen to cancer cells, and that this kills cancer cells1.Can essential oils repair DNA? (the short answer is "no") is a detailed and exciting explanation of how DNA repair mechanisms work, and what role essential oils play in relation to cellular integrity and cancer.
Stewart’s claims are not not supported by any published experimental work on essential oils, their chemical constituents, or known cellular mechanisms. In fact, there is ample evidence that essential oils and their chemical constituents are unable to correct any DNA errors. Rather than correcting errors and rescuing cells, essential oils actually lead to apoptotic cell death. There is certainly no evidence that monoterpenes or sesquiterpenes in particular are able to re-program faulty DNA, or repair DNA mutations. Unfortunately, his unsupported assertions have been copied in many additional publications and popular blog posts. Efforts to independently identify sources for his claims were not successful. David Stewart was not available for comment, and contacts in his CARE organization were not able to identify his sources.
Essential oils and their constituents represent promising medicines in the fight against cancer, but this must be evidence-based, and reproducible. Currently, there is no whole essential oil that is an established cancer treatment. Future work exploring the effects of essential oils and their chemical constituents should determine if lower doses might induce DNA repair mechanisms without introducing additional DNA damage. Chemotherapeutics are highly variable across cell types and patients, and it would follow that the exact dose relationship between the amount of damage per unit of essential oil or chemical would also be variable. The dosing would likely be patient-specific, and cell-type specific as well.
Visit the Tisserand Institute to read the whole article. http://tisserandinstitute.org/can-essential-oils-repair-dna-the-short-answer-is-no/