Talk:Aromatherapy

The positive side of aromatherapy

There are the non-woo aspects - 'lotions, potions, other nice smelling things used as as gifts etc', and most of us enjoy 'pleasant smelling things' (apart from the ones to which one is allergic, or which react to sunlight etc). If one feels X makes the world seem better it is a Good Thing (even if there is a placebo aspect). Anna Livia (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Aromatherapy is not woo.

Credible metastudies conclude (with extremely high confidence values) that aromatherapy does indeed help withsleep and pain. Obviously it doesn't cure cancer but that doesn't mean it's woo.

Therefore, this article needs to be heavily edited or deleted.

--37.201.6.31 (talk) 04:34, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I took a small read at the second link but it's not that great. There are a few problems: I don't think the controls for the studies are good. In most of them, placebo means no accompanying identical smell, just a massage. That is not how placebo works, correct? There should be a synthetic scent that smells almost identical to the one in the experiment group. A lot of the groups outlined show meh results. The childbirth pain is one of the stronger negatives, showing no difference, but the authors say "it's still viable and low cost". I mean, what? There is no mechanism proposed exactly how a particular combination of olfactory chemicals can directly alleviate pain, not that I have seen. Additionally, in the discussion section, I noticed in some studies, patients with the aromatherapy protocol received additional care and treatment which really interferes with the results. There is also quite a few studies that are poorly designed according to study limitations. This meta analysis is not that big, being only 12 studies. To take such a small not solidly conclusive meta analysis and to propose a massive rewrite, if not outright delete it, is jumping off the boat, don't you think? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:55, 31 October 2018 (UTC)