Artimisinin is also known as wormwood, there are different species of wormwood plants but our focus is going to be on Sweet Wormwood (Artimisia annua). In the late 1960’s, scientists used an extract from this plant, artimisinin, to develop an anti-malarial drug. It’s discovery is quite a fascinating story. It was discovered during a time known as the “Chinese Cultural Revolution”, and during which time, scientists were prohibited from making such discoveries. Artemisinin was discovered through a secret project known as “project 523” at the behest of the Chinese government in order to find a novel treatment for malaria. This discovery would, ultimately, end up winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine for its head scientist, professor Youyou Tu. This monumental achievement would not occur until much later (2015). Itself and its derivatives are still used today for this purpose. Artemisinin is now in its own class of medications. There have been studies that have determined when resistance to the malarial drug occurred, adding in the whole plant extract (along with the drug form) caused the drug to work better and overcame the resistance with no ill effects: (See link). It is important to note that many current drug therapies today have a plant origin, or have been extracted from plants or compounds in nature. This is a great point because plants, in their whole forms, contain these actives in natural amounts that our bodies can tolerate. This is the very reason that natural therapies are often without side effects because they are seen as “food” by our bodies.
Back to wormwood. It has been found to be an effective anti-inflammatory agent in preclinical trials (See link). It has also been studied extensively for its antimicrobial/antifungal activities (See link). It can also function as an antiviral and an immunomodulator, most recently, it was proposed as a repurposed treatment for Covid-19. Many of wormwood’s inherent properties make it ideal to fight Covid, as its configurations can block entry, attachment and replication of several of the SARS-COV-2’s proteins and constituents (See link) (See link). It is also believed to help stimulate the adaptive immune response via accruing more CD8+ and CD4+ to the scene (preceded by decreasing certain cytokines that would normally discourage them) (See link). Wormwood’s constituents are also quite effective against other families of viruses and are being investigated as possible therapeutic agents for Herpes, HIV-1&2, Epstein-Barr, and several others (See link). It is for these very reasons that we use Artimisia annua essential oil in our “Everything Balm”. It contains all of the powerful active ingredients. It is an all around great plant-based healer whether you have a scrape or just dry, irritated skin. We are also currently formulating a new balm specifically for viral issues (cold sores, sick/dry noses). This will be coming soon, we are still finalizing research so we can ensure that we get the best, most effective ingredients in the product to ensure efficacy. We are combing through the scientific literature as we speak.
