Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2005; 10: 50–1
External application of etherial oils for musculoskeletal pain of different origin is widely used with little knowledge of its efficacy and mode of action beside hyperemia. Research was to start with exercise-induced pain in humans.
Within 1 hr after standardised physical training, 30 male healthy volunteers (medium age 27.7 years) were rubbed twice with a commercially available mixture of seven herbal oils (arnica and St. John’s wort accounting for 87.5%) on one side of the body and with a non-volatile placebo oil on the other with left/right randomisation. Overall lateralised pain and tension as well as lateralised pain and tension in four muscle groups were measured as primary outcome parameters with a VAS 0 to 10 cm seven times over 48 h.
VAS areas under the curve (AuC) of overall and single muscle groups in intra-indiviudal left/right comparison were processed with confirmative statistics and Bonferroni corrections. Overall pain turned out to be significantly different in favour of verum (mean difference −71.0; 2P < 0.0038, student t-test), whereas differences in AuC for pain in any single muscle group or for muscle tension in single regions or overall did not reach statistical significance. No side-effects were seen.
In spite of many dropouts due to insufficient development of pain, only two applications seemed to effectively reduce muscle pain. Due to study design, it seemed feasible to rule out possible additional olfactorial effects of etherial oils. This model might be suitable for musculoskeletal pain caused by diseases.
Funding was given by Pharma Liebermann, Germany (manufacturer of Dolo-cyl Öl).
