Evening primrose oil found ineffective in treating eczema

If you suffer from eczema, a new study finds that applying evening primrose oil and borage oil, commonly used alternative treatments, won't do you much good.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School and Essentia Health System in Duluth, Minnesota, US, just published their review of 27 studies in 27 countries on the subject in The Cochrane Library on April 30.

Atopic eczema is the most common form of eczema and results in red, painful, tight skin. Eczema is a chronic inflammatory skin condition and affects about 10 to 20 percent of school-age children, the researchers said.

For around 60 percent of people, the disorder will improve or clear up by adulthood but there is no cure.

Creams, ointments, bath additives, topical steroids and antihistamines are some of the treatments prescribed to ease the condition. However, people often turn to complementary therapies such as evening primrose oil and borage oil in the hope that they will avoid side effects of conventional treatments. Both evening primrose oil and borage oil contain high quantities of gamma linoleic acid, which has been thought to play a role in reducing skin inflammation in eczema.

The researchers analyzed the benefits and side effects associated with evening primrose oil and borage oil in 27 studies involving a total of 1,596 people, both adults and children. Nineteen of the studies looked at evening primrose oil, while eight studies examined borage oil. In the studies, subjects used the treatments, or a placebo, for between three to 24 weeks.

"There is no evidence that taking either evening primrose or borage oil is of benefit to eczema sufferers," said lead researcher Joel Bamford. "Given the strength of the evidence in our review, we think further studies on the use of these complementary therapies to treat eczema would be hard to justify."

Access the study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004416.pub2/abstract;jsessionid=032074DCF566202F191C88549893B222.d01t04

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Evening primrose oil found ineffective in treating eczema