Abstract Today, the numbers of people suffering from lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity, allergies and depression increases mainly in industrialised states. That does not only lower patients’ quality of life but also severely stresses the health care systems of these countries. Essential oils (EO) have been in use as therapeutic remedies for centuries against various complaints, but still their effectiveness is being underestimated. In the last decades, a great number of controlled studies have supported efficacy of these volatile secondary plant metabolites for various therapeutic indications. Besides others, EO has antidepressant, anti-obesity, antidiabetic, antifirogenic and antiallergic effects. In this review the pharmacological mechanisms for selected EO are summarised and discussed with the main attention on their impact against public health disorders. Additionally, toxicity of these oils as well as possible drug interactions is presented.

中文翻译：

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选定的精油及其治疗公共健康障碍的机制。概述

摘要 今天，患有糖尿病、肥胖症、过敏症和抑郁症等生活方式疾病的人数主要在工业化国家增加。这不仅会降低患者的生活质量，还会对这些国家的医疗保健系统造成严重压力。几个世纪以来，精油 (EO) 一直被用作治疗各种疾病的药物，但其有效性仍被低估。在过去的几十年中，大量对照研究支持这些挥发性次生植物代谢物对各种治疗适应症的疗效。除其他外，EO 还具有抗抑郁、抗肥胖、抗糖尿病、抗纤维化和抗过敏作用。在这篇综述中，总结和讨论了选定 EO 的药理机制，主要关注它们对公共卫生障碍的影响。此外，还介绍了这些油的毒性以及可能的药物相互作用。