The immune system is a highly complex system that contributes both to the maintenance of a healthy body and defence against harmful pathogens. Certain existing health factors and mental states can make it difficult for the immune system to be fully effective. Natural remedies such as essential oils can support the body’s immune response and, more generally, can offer support to the ‘whole person’ as well.

When making your own aromatherapeutic remedies consider the ingredients you are adding to your recipe and choose essential oils so that your formulation includes ingredients that will enhance transdermal penetration, improve skin protection, function and repair, as well as offering antimicrobial power and immune resilience and add a sense of wellbeing through the overall scent.

IFA Aromacare provides a way of caring for senior people, emphasising the importance of the senses using essential oils for providing nurturing touch for reassurance and support, creating relationships and sharing memories to support language and communication through story massage. You might describe Aromacare as a sensory menu with a range of options and choices.

By researching into child development it became clear that stimulation provided by parents, touching, holding, stroking, combined with simple language is important for higher order brain functioning and the formation of trusting relationships, the development of communication skills, and the ability to solve problems creating ways of self-calming during periods of distress.

Professor Thomas Hummel and colleagues (Damm et al 2013, Hummel 2009) devised a system of re-training olfactory receptors after the loss of the sense of smell, using four essential oils (rose, eucalyptus, clove and lemon) to stimulate re-growth and reactivation of olfactory receptors and epithelium supporting cells at the roof of the nose.

How SARS-CoV-2 enters human cells is a high priority for deciphering its mystery and curbing its spread. The entry of enveloped viruses into cells is known to occur via two primary pathways: some viruses deliver their genomes to the cytosol after their envelopes fuse with the plasma membrane at the cell surface, whereas others take advantage of the cell's endocytic machinery.