REVIEW article
Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Systems Endocrinology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2025.1684179
This article is part of the Research TopicHerbal Medicine for the Treatment of Chronic Metabolic Diseases, Volume IIView all 39 articles
Advances in Essential Oils for Metabolic Diseases
Provisionally accepted- 1Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China
- 2Henan University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou, China
- 3Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China
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Metabolic diseases are a group of complex disorders caused by abnormal metabolic processes, such as diabetes, obesity, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Long-term uncontrolled metabolic diseases will significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, renal damage, and neurologic complications, leading to shorter survival and reduced quality of life for patients. While conventional treatments rely on pharmacological interventions, essential oils have shown significant therapeutic potential as a natural treatment modality. Essential Oils are concentrated aromatic substances extracted from plants, possessing multiple biological activities, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and insulin sensitivity modulation. Studies have shown that specific essential oil components can improve metabolic disorders, enhance insulin sensitivity, and lower blood glucose, and blood lipids through a variety of mechanisms, thus playing an active role in the management of metabolic diseases. This review highlights the therapeutic potential of EOs in managing various metabolic disorders by modulating key metabolic pathways, mitigating oxidative damage, and regulating gut microbiota. We focus particularly on the rationale for selecting EOs as a research focus—their complex chemical composition enables synergistic actions against multiple pathological targets simultaneously. Additionally, we address safety profiles and current clinical evidence supporting their translational application.
Keywords: essential oils, Metabolic Diseases, diabetes, Obesity, mechanisms, Safety
Received: 12 Aug 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xinxin, Tong, Cao, Sun and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiangjuan Sun, sunxiangjuan@cdutcm.edu.cn
Fenghua Zhang, zhangfenghua@cdutcm.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.