Scent Diffusers Improve Memory in Seniors

[jmbar2]

13. On the other hand...

About 30% of the population cannot tolerate exposure to scents (http://nebula.wsimg.com/5c1f15f64e19deb82cffa6ff6f9844ea?AccessKeyId=5D08F679D61730E5CF3A&disposition=0&alloworigin=1)

I am one of them. I was driven out of my last home by an elderly neighbor who used aromatherapy 24/7. It wafted up into my apartment, much like living next to a smoking neighbor, causing asthma, high blood pressure and migraines. After awhile, these symptoms morphed into a more serious hypersensitivity to all nearly all scents and chemicals.

Scents are transported by volatile organic compounds that are extremely reactive with oxygen, causing them to disperse rapidly into the air, including into the lungs. With repeated exposure, sensitive individuals can develop long-lasting chemical sensitivities, ruining your life. That's why perfumes are banned from many schools, clinic, courthouses, libraries and performing venues.

I had to sleep in my car in the parking lot for a few months, and finally bought a van to sleep in until I could save up enough money to move again. In all, it cost me the better part of my small life savings to find places to sleep until I was able to move into a new place without constant chemical exposure to scents. It has taken me three years to recover from the hypersensitivity somewhat.

Like the tobacco industry, there is a lot of pseudoscience around aromatherapy, paid for by the marketers of such products. Selling aromatherapy is big business in Mormon communities, where stay-at-home wives are lured into multilevel marketing schemes pushing the stuff. Producers of aromatherapy have ended up in courts, and have been ordered to stop making medical claims by the FDA. https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/5-things-weve-learned-about-the-booming-essential-oils-business/

The scents are also extremely bad for pets.

The Psychology Today article is extremely irresponsible to encourage subjecting persons with cognitive impairments to such chemicals. No one should be able to alter the air that another breathes, but especially those who many not be able to advocate for themselves.

Here is some research that explains in detail the harmful effects of long-term low level exposure to chemicals such as those in aromatherapy.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/074823379901500317

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11869-017-0536-2

Sorry to react so harshly, but the lying scammers marketing aromatherapy and related scent products, and those that push their sponsored pseudoscience literally ruined my life.