Emu Oil For Eczema: Does It Really Work?

Once in a while natural medicine comes up with treatments that don't really make a lot of sense, that don't really have a clear scientific foundation, that work anyway. Emu oil for eczema is one of those treatments that works despite the fact many experts in the field don't expect it to.

The emu is a soft-feathered, brown, flightless bird native to Australia. Emus typically reach a height of 2 meters (about 6 feet). Their long legs allow them to take steps of up to 3 meters (9 feet), and when fleeing danger, the bird can reach speeds of 50 km/hour (about 30 mph) for several minutes.

Natives of the Australian outback, emus can eat and do just about anything, and they swallow hard objects, including rocks, glass, tin cans, and small metal objects to help them digest their food. Emus can swim, and they have few predators other than dingoes, crocodiles, and humans.

Emu Oil an Ancient Aboriginal Remedy

The native peoples of Australia arrived over 40,000 years ago, and the emu plays a prominent role in their mythology. The Yuwaalaraay people have a myth that the sun was created by throwing an emu egg into the sky. An aboriginal group in Western Australian tell the story of the creation of the emu by a small bird, who became annoyed with a hunter and threw a boomerang, cutting off the hunger's arms and transforming him into the flightless, human-sized bird.

Emu is red meat, and very low in fat, less than 1.5% fat, but the fat under its skin has been used by the aboriginal peoples of inland Australia for countless generations as a remedy for skin ailments of all kinds.

Does Emu Oil Really Work?

Despite the numerous articles claiming there have been "no" studies of the efficacy of emu oil in treating skin problems in humans, there in fact have been four small-scale clinical trials in Australia.

They found that applying the oil actually delayed healing by an average of six days.

See Also: Natural Treatment For Eczema - 10 Simple and Quick Steps

Delaying healing is not necessarily a bad thing if a wound is properly dressed. The reason the mixture of emu oil, vitamin E, and the herbal extract slowed down the closure of the wound was that it stopped inflammation, slowing down the rate at which white blood cells broke down dead or damaged skin cells. In some instances, this would prevent the wound from becoming larger as it healed.

In a later experiment, researchers tested the emu oil mixture, pure emu oil, and two other treatments on skin wounds in laboratory mice. They found that it was the mixture of emu oil and vitamin E that modified healing of the skin. Pure emu oil did not slow reduce inflammation of slow down wound healing. Only the emu oil and vitamin E mixture reduced inflammation changed the process of healing of the skin.

Emu oil is rich in essential fatty acids like omega-3, omega-6, and omega-9, vital for maintaining skin health. Its unique composition allows it to penetrate skin layers deeply, ensuring that its therapeutic properties reach the underlying cells. Renowned for its anti-inflammatory abilities, emu oil can potentially reduce inflammation, offering relief from symptoms like redness and itching associated with conditions like eczema. Additionally, it acts as an effective moisturizer, replenishing the skin's lipids and preventing dryness. Being a natural product, emu oil is often gentle on sensitive skin, and its potential antibacterial properties can further aid in skin health.

How To Use Emu Oil To Treat Eczema

If you have eczema, you don't have a full-thickness wound of the skin (unless the itching has become so bad that you scratched through your skin). You just have 24/7 inflammation that makes your skin itch, itch, and itch some more. For itchy skin, emu oil plus vitamin E may be just what you need to stop the unpleasant sensation of itch. 

Scientists don't have a good understanding of what would make one emu oil product better than another other than the addition of vitamin E. (This is vitamin E applied directly to the skin, not vitamin E taken as a nutritional supplement.)

They found that the anti-inflammatory substances in the oil were concentrated in the non-triglyceride fraction, that is, in the liquid of the oil rather than in the "grease," but that whatever it is that makes emu oil a good anti-inflammatory stands up during long-term storage. Emu oil is a good moisturizer, sealing water in the skin, making it more flexible and less prone to dry, flake, and peel as it heals.

How does emu oil stack up against the standard medications your doctor can give you for eczema? A clinical study of three eczema medications found that:

• Emu oil is more effective than Hydrocortisone or clotrimazole for relieving redness of the skin.
• Hydrocortisone is more effective than emu oil or clotrimazole for relieving itching.
• Clotrimazole is more effective than emu oil or Hydrocortisone for stopping scaling of the skin.

So why not use all three? Although emu oil's greatest strength is in making red skin more normally colored, it has some anti-itch effect and adds to other treatments in reducing scaling. Although emu oil from Australia is food grade, and safe to digest, it is more effective when it is applied directly to the skin rather than taken as a nutritional supplement. The oil is noncomedogenic, that is, it won't cause whiteheads or blackheads, and allergies to emu oil are exceedingly rare.

See Also: Natural Treatments for Eczema

Apply emu oil to freshly cleansed skin you have patted dry with a clean towel. If you are treating eczema on an infant, make sure you are using pure, food grade emu oil from Australia. Babies can and do reach all over and put products that are rubbed onto their skin into the mouths, so you don't want to put anything that isn't safe to eat on your babies skin unless it is safely under a bandage or a diaper.

If you're using other creams or treatments for your eczema, emu oil can be used in conjunction, but it's best to wait for a few minutes between different product applications.

Some people who use emu oil get results in a day or two, while others get results in a month or two. Don't expect a cure for eczema overnight. Continue using every other method at your disposal to keep the condition in check. And only buy products that come with a money back guarantee.