Essential oils from plants have long been a component of home remedies, but the exact way they work is not completely understood. However, a group of scientist in Japan believed that many essential oils might target COX-2 much like compounds in wine and tea to suppress inflammation.
So, they screened a wide range of commercially available oils and identified six (thyme, clove, rose, eucalyptus, fennel and bergamot) that reduced COX-2 expression in cells by at least 25%. Of these, thyme oil proved the most active, reducing COX-2 levels by almost 75%.
They found that the major component of thyme oil is carvacrol and that it was the primary active agent. When they used pure carvacrol extracts in their tests COX-2 levels decreased by over 80%.