RESEARCH ARTICLE
Essential Oils, A New Horizon in Combating Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance
Polly Soo Xi Yap 1, Beow Chin Yiap 2, Hu Cai Ping 3, Swee Hua Erin Lim 2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2014Volume: 8
First Page: 6
Last Page: 14
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-8-6
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801408010006
Article History:
Received Date: 21/10/2013Revision Received Date: 24/10/2013
Acceptance Date: 26/12/2013
Electronic publication date: 7/2/2014
Collection year: 2014

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
For many years, the battle between humans and the multitudes of infection and disease causing pathogens continues. Emerging at the battlefield as some of the most significant challenges to human health are bacterial resistance and its rapid rise. These have become a major concern in global public health invigorating the need for new antimicrobial compounds. A rational approach to deal with antibiotic resistance problems requires detailed knowledge of the different biological and non-biological factors that affect the rate and extent of resistance development. Combination therapy combining conventional antibiotics and essential oils is currently blooming and represents a potential area for future investigations. This new generation of phytopharmaceuticals may shed light on the development of new pharmacological regimes in combating antibiotic resistance. This review consolidated and described the observed synergistic outcome between essential oils and antibiotics, and highlighted the possibilities of essential oils as the potential resistance modifying agent.