Oil of Oregano - what's the best kind?

[2manyfibers]

I did a little research on oil of oregano today at the request of another forum member. I had never really looked into this product and thought what I found might be worthwhile to post for other people that use it or are considering using it. I was actually a bit surprised at what I found as far as the difference in the various products I looked at. Although the difference in price and marketing hype varies greatly (some products make a good effort at explaining why their products are supposedly far superior to others), I found that price (or the marketing information) is not really a good indicator of the quality of the product. As always, I present this as information that people can take for whatever they think its worth so anyone is free to agree or disagree with my assessment of it.

Thymol and carvacrol are considered to be the active ingredients in oregano that make it effective as an antifungal / antibacterial / anti-parasitical agent (with carvacrol being considered the most important). Most oil of oregano products are made from the same species of oregano plant (origanum vulgare) and they all appear to use olive oil as a “carrier” or dilution agent (pure oil of oregano can apparently “burn” or irritate the skin and digestive tract, so they all appear to mix it with olive oil). But when you look at how much carvacrol various products actually have in a serving, the actual carvacrol content varies greatly with some of the cheaper products actually containing more carvacrol than the more expensive products. Thus, it appears that the only way to determine the actual quality is to determine how much carvacrol is contained in a given product (which can also be done by analyzing the concentration of oregano contained in the olive oil mixture.

From looking at several sources of information and wikipedia (Carvacrol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) the type of oregano used in oil or oregano products comes from the origanum vulgare species and it apparently contains at least 50% carvacrol as part of its natural chemical content (regardless of where it is grown). If the "standard" type of oregano has about 50 to 55% carvacrol content as it appears, and it is grown “naturally” (no pesticides, etc.), the actual quality really boils down to the concentration of oregano (and cravocrol) that is mixed with the olive oil no matter who is selling it (or the concentration of carvacrol in the oregano).

Some of the more expensive sites selling the wild Mediterranean oil make a big deal about carvacrol content of their oil of oregano and that their products are supposedly more natural since the oregano supposedly comes from the mountains of Turkey. These sites claim their carvacrol content (of the oregano) is greater than 85% which I suppose could be because of the nutrient content of the soil where it’s grown. They also make a big deal about it supposedly being more pure because of a supposed lack of pesticides and other chemicals. I personally think that's basically a lot of marketing hype to try to sell their product at a higher price.

Most oregano grown anywhere is a food crop and I'm sure no matter where it is grown, they wouldn't put much if any pesticides on it because they know the leaves are crushed up as the final product to be consumed. I would imagine government regulations would prevent it on that type of food crop in most places where it’s grown (although I wouldn’t guess the regulations in the mountains of Turkey would be particularly well enforced if they have regulations). From what I’ve read, oregano also appears to have good natural insect resistance, so I don’t know how valid the pesticide worries might actually be.

One site that does a good job of trying to sell on the benefits of this “wild Mediterranean”, high carvacrol content oregano oil is shown in the link below. It also has a chart that compares the carvacrol content in various products.

Oregano Oil - Wild Mediterranean mountain grown oregano oil 85% carvacrol

COMPARE PRICE & QUALITY
NOW FOODS Liquid or Gel Caps - 55% CARVACROL PRICE VARIES
NORTH AMERICAN HERB & SPICE (p73) LESS THAN 1/2 OZ - over 64% CARVACROL $29.99
MY HEALTH PRO 1 OZ - over 64% CARVACROL $44.99
HEALTH HOUND 1 OZ - 70% CARVACROL $21.00

According to the site Bio-Alternatives site linked to above, “BIO-ALTERNATIVES Oil of Oregano products deliver a whopping 84.15 mg Carvacrol per ml!” Their product sells for $17.99 per 1 ounce bottle.

I went to another site (the next link) and found they also sell “wild Mediterranean” oil of oregano, and they also claim it is the best (no surprise there).

Oil of Oregano - Mountain Grown Wild Mediterranean

Their product has about 33 to 35 mg of carvacrol per dose (or serving). They say a one ounce bottle has 250 servings. Since 1 ounce equals 25.6 milliliters (ml), their recommended dosage (or serving) amount is about 0.10 ml (which contains about 33 mg of carvacrol). Thus, this product appears to contain about 330 mg of carvacrol per ml of actual pre-mixed product (compared to the “whopping” 84.15 mg per ml in the product above). They sell a single 1 ounce bottle for $28.95 or you can buy more for a cheaper price at three 1 ounce bottles for $57.90.

The next site is for a more "generic", “drug-store” type of oil of oregano (not necessarily wild Mediterranean but the same species of oregano, origanum vulgare). The supposedly "lower quality" brands have around 50 to 55% carvacrol (based on comparisons at different sites and the wikipedia information). The oil from this site has a bit over 50% carvacrol (concentration) per dose and the recommended dose of 0.17 ml contains 13 mg of oregano, of which about 7 mg is carvacrol. Thus, the concentration of carvacrol is about 40 mg per ml (about half the carvacrol of the Bio-Alternatives brand and about an eighth of the “healthy-health.com” brand). Their price is $16 for a one ounce bottle (with about 180 recommended doses). Here's the link:

Nature's Answer Oil of Oregano -- 1 oz - www.Vitacost.com

The next link is to the Puritan's Pride oregano oil. Their recommended dose is 0.5 ml which makes about 60 doses from a one ounce bottle. However, one dose of their oil of oregano has 4,000 mg of actual oregano (which would mean about 2,000 mg of carvacrol per dose based on a 50% carvacrol content). Thus, the concentration of carvacrol in the Puritan’s Pride brand appears to be about 4,000 mg per ml – more than ten times the concentration of carvacrol than any of the others I looked at. The Puritan's Pride brand is $6.97 for a 1 ounce bottle (with 4,000 mg of carvacrol per ml) compared to roughly $20.00 or more per 1 ounce bottle of the "wild Mediterranean" types (which appear to have less than a tenth the carvacrol per ml at best - the highest concentration of these I looked at was 330 mg of carvacrol per ml). Here’s the link to the Puritan’s pride site:

OIL OF OREGANO Liquid Extract | Liquid Herbal Extracts Supplements | HERBAL AUTHORITY

If you compare the Puritan’s Pride brand to the Vitacost product above, to get 60 doses per 1 ounce bottle (as the Puritan’s Pride site shows), the Vitacost brand would contain 39 mg or oregano with about 21 mg of carvacrol per dose (the Vitacost brand shows 180 doses per one ounce bottle). This is a far cry from the 2,000 mg in the comparable Puritan’s Pride dose. The Vitacost site recommends 3 doses a day while the Puritan's Pride site calls for 1 dose a day. Thus, you could use a third of the Puritan's Pride brand dosage (mixed in a glass of water) 3 times a day (if you made the puritans bottle last for 180 "doses" you would still get about 667 mg of carvacrol per dose compared to 7 mg for the Vitacost brand).

If you used only a fourth of the puritans recommended dose in order to get about 240 "doses" as the link for the “healthy-health.com” brand shows, you would still get about 500 mg of carvacrol per comparable dose from the puritan's pride oil compared to the 33 mg for the supposedly “high carvacrol concentration, wild Mediterranean" oil.

Thus, for the money the puritan's pride brand appears to be a much better value than the others to me because it has much more carvacrol than the others no matter how you split the doses (and it is a whole lot cheaper per ounce as well at about $7 per ounce). My opinion is based purely on the carvacrol content per milliliter that I calculated based on the available information. As I’ve stated many times before, I have no affiliation of any kind with Puritan’s Pride other than I order most of the supplements I personally take from them. That being said, I do believe that they generally have good quality products at very reasonable prices (often the best prices I can find anywhere for comparable products). Any time I have looked at independent product reviews for supplements, Puritan’s Pride has always graded out at being 100% accurate of whatever ingredients the products are claimed to have in them (basically, their products have been consistently verified to be whatever they say it is).

[Baraka Obam]

I use it but never bothered to look at it in such a way. I do know the kind I have, GHC, oil of oregano is some kind of potent stuff, it certainly needs to be put inside a capsual to take, you can get them online or at your health food store. Take it after eating or the results can be heartburn city for you. Thanks for the tip on where to get oil of oregano and also other supplaments. It is really nice to know what you take is not just some flavored oil or powdered dust. I would really like to find the best natural system for blood pressure control if anyone knows one.

[2manyfibers]

Hey Baraka – I don’t know if it’s necessarily “the best” method of natural blood pressure regulation, but I did a post on using vitamin supplements to regulate blood pressure last year. I got the information from a combination of several websites where various doctors recommended ways to regulate blood pressure (you can google "blood pressure regulation with vitamins" or something similar and find some of them). It mainly works by providing your body with electrolytes and lowering cholesterol with vitamin C and CoQ10 (electrolytes help the body regulate fluid levels). The vitamin C also helps build collagens that strengthen the arteries and heart (both are made mainly of collagen fibers) so it helps in multiple ways.

Since I wrote the post linked to below I’ve found in my research that vitamin D also helps regulate blood pressure because it modulates the renin / angiotensin cycle in the kidneys (the “A” in ACE inhibitors stands for angiotensin). The body produces more angiotensin than normal as a response to low blood pressure or low blood volume as a means of constricting the arteries in order to increase blood pressure so that the kidneys can filter the blood properly. As another effect of increased angiotensin, the body creates more of a specific type of collagen (not the type that is normally used for the construction of blood vessels) that is believed to create a gradual buildup of plaque in the arteries. The ACE inhibitors (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme inhibitors) prevent the body from creating certain enzymes that allow the creation of angiotensin. The dosages of supplemental vitamin D recommended based on recent research appears to be between 800 IU per day to 2,000 IU per day - some of which depends on how much sunlight you get (the body makes vitamin D from sunlight).

ACE inhibitors also contain chemicals that dilate the blood vessels (makes them expand) that most of the manufacturers don’t necessarily tell you about – this is what actually makes them lower blood pressure (the ACE inhibitor part of the medication works long term to prevent the collagen buildup). One of the documented side effects of ACE inhibitors is that it can cause blood pressure to become too low, which seems to be self defeating to me. Obviously I’m not a big fan of ACE inhibitors.

The list of supplements included in the link below mentions potassium. Potassium is a key electrolyte but you may not want to take any supplemental potassium (get it only from food) if you are already on blood pressure meds because some of them cause the body to store potassium in greater amounts than normal (too much potassium can cause muscles to “relax” too much and since the heart is a muscle, too much potassium can cause the heart to stop beating).

I do know that this supplement regimen works though. I have a friend that was taking an ACE inhibitor (that appeared to be fairly effective) and for unknown reasons his doctor changed his medication to an ARB (which is an Angiotensin Receptor Blocker that works similarly to ACE inhibitors but is a newer family of drugs). His blood pressure jumped to around 175 / 115 on the ARBs so his doctor put him back on the ACE inhibitor (along with the ARB). His blood pressure didn’t improve so he started taking a few of the supplements shown in the link below (he only took vitamin C, magnesium and zinc at first and has since started using the CoQ10 too). His blood pressure got down to around 125 / 80 within a month or so (a drop of 40 to 50 points) and has been pretty stable there for the last couple of years as long as he has kept up with the supplements (he also was able to stop taking the ARB and he hopes to get to the point that he can stop taking any of it).

I don’t take the amounts of the supplements shown in the link, but I do take most of the supplements in lesser daily amounts than what is shown. I can tell you that my blood pressure has consistently been around 115 / 75 to 120 / 80 for the last several years which I think is pretty good for a smoker that would be considered overweight by most standards. Thus, I have a pretty high level of confidence that these supplements can help regulate blood pressure effectively when taken regularly. Here’s the link:

Natural blood pressure regulation

[Baraka Obam]

I really apreciate it, I am taking most of those and a ace inhibitor, I do not really want to take any doctor drugs. I am sure a poster child of the results. I need to now make sure of the amounts of supplaments AND get a little more sun like I used to. I was always swimming and biking, now I am ready to start living again. I need to fine hone it all of what I learn together as one. thanks for the help I see you do your homework!

[carla]

Great post again,Fibers. If you get a chance take a look at Tumeric for me . I don't know if it is coincedence but I'm feeling well better since I started taking it .
carla
xxxxxx

[tcmgpt13]

I just thought I would link here to a thread started by 10meters last year which is also about oil of oregano. Interestingly this poster also suggested buying from Puritan's Pride:

oregano oil#######Anti-pleomoantibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, antiviral

In my own case I use oil of oregano from:

New Product - One ounce of Oil of Oregano in Glass Eyedropper Bottle

I can attest to the fact that this oil is very strong. It has been awhile since I used this and probably should try it again. It was so strong that it would bring short strings of whatever this is to just under the surface of the skin in my fingers and arms. I think this must have been in the blood or lymph as sometimes I could press down, bring it to the surface and wipe whatever this is off. Usually it was colored blue, like ink which made me suspect that in my case that the fish passed on one of those tiny parasites from the sea which do have this capability. Sounds a bit far out though, so I don't push that view and certainly have never said anything like that to my doctor.

As BO mentions this oil has to be added to capsules to take internally. My herbalist had me work up gradually to a few half capsules a day.

[AsperGirl]

If Puritan's has 4,000 mg/ml of active ingredient then that's a pretty good achievement. Because even if the oil of oregano was as heavy as water, it could only weigh 1 gram/ml. There is no way that Puritans gets 4 grams of active ingredient per ml.

[2manyfibers]

Aspergirl – maybe you should actually read and comprehend the information you criticize and develop an understanding of what standardized extracts are before making smarmy comments on a thread as your first post on a forum. The best I can tell is that most (if not all) oil of oregano supplements contain extracts of oregano as the active ingredient – some standardized (to make them consistent in content for every “batch”) and others not.

Here is the link to the Puritan’s Pride site showing the oil of oregano I was talking about along with the concentration shown – note that the serving size is ½ ml and it is an extract standardized to contain the equivalent desired chemical ingredients of 4,000 mg (4 grams) of oregano:

Herbal Supplements: OIL OF OREGANO


Supplement Facts
Serving Size 1/2 mL

Oil of Oregano 4,000 mg (4g)

(Origanum vulgare) (aerial)
(dried weight equivalent)

I based my calculations on what is shown on the various sites including the Puritan’s Pride site. Using the information from Puritan’s Pride (which I am sure they relied on the information provided by the actual manufacturer of the oil), the oil shown would actually contain the equivalent of 8,000 mg per ml of oregano. Thus, applying an estimated 50% concentration of carvacrol in the oregano would result in 4,000 mg per ml of carvacrol.

I can only use the information provided by the manufacturers of these products regarding concentrations of carvacrol in their products. I’m sure the chemical concentration of any extract would depend on a lot of factors including the methods used for extraction of the active ingredients and the quality of the oregano used. The chemical extraction process for any material is intended to eliminate “inactive" ingredients such as plant cellulose in order to “concentrate” the active chemical ingredients in a smaller volume than the original form. Obviously, I have no way to verify or deny information shown because I obviously haven’t tested or verified their manufacturing process - I have no reason to doubt the stated information because I don’t know enough about the extraction process used.

Clearly, your statement regarding the density of water has no application whatsoever to this analysis because water is not an extract in concentrated form and theoretically contains no chemicals aside from hydrogen and oxygen that constitute its chemical structure. Simply put, the density of water has nothing to do with standardized extracts being mixed into a predetermined volume of oil – it has nothing to do with mixtures of compounds. For instance I could put a lead weight that weighed 50 pounds into a milliliter of oil – the mixture would be 50 pounds of lead per milliliter of oil. Thus, the density of water has no valid relation at all to the calculations shown in this thread.

It appears to me that it is you who should check your information and think through your assumptions more thoroughly before popping off at me about the calculations I posted. I’m sure that your apology will be forthcoming.

[Dove]

Some products list the mg but fail to list the carvacrol percentage. The highest I found that can be bought is 85%, but, please note, this must be diluted usually with olive oil. You can not injest it at 85%. If a brand says it contains Olive oil it has already been diluted.

Puritan's Pride (I shop there also) has it but, most of their products are not standardized which means the proportions are not always the same. Their oregano oil does not list the carvacrol content so you do not really know how much you are getting.

Natures Way offers the oil in capsule form, no mixing. I have tried 3 different kinds and now keep two that proved beneficial. One is the pure with 85% carvacrol which I dilute myself with olive oil.

"Look for standardized herbal supplements. The U.S. Pharmacopeia's "USP Dietary Supplement Verified" seal on a supplement indicates the supplement has met certain manufacturing standards.
These standards include testing the product for uniformity, cleanliness and freedom from environmental contaminants, such as lead, mercury or drugs."

Here is an example of a label that tells you:

"Standardized to a Carvarcol content of 69% without artificial additives - which makes it the most naturally potent available. Higher amounts would require artificial boosting - thus claims of natural Carvarcol above 69% are misleading."

[unknownpest]

great post, ive been making my own oil by putting regular bulk dried oregano in olive oil for one month and use it for cooking it works.